千般拷打 Beaten A Thousand Ways
誰曉得我這寺裡黃金寶塔污了，這兩年外國不來朝貢。我王欲要征伐，眾臣諫道：我寺裡僧人偷了塔上寶貝，所以無祥雲瑞靄，外國不朝。昏君更不察理。那些贓官將我僧眾拿了去，千般拷打，萬樣追求。當時我這裡有三輩和尚：前兩輩已被拷打不過，死了；如今又捉我輩，問罪枷鎖。谁晓得我这寺里黄金宝塔污了，这两年外国不来朝贡。我王欲要征伐，众臣谏道：我寺里僧人偷了塔上宝贝，所以无祥云瑞霭，外国不朝。昏君更不察理。那些赃官将我僧众拿了去，千般拷打，万样追求。当时我这里有三辈和尚：前两辈已被拷打不过，死了；如今又捉我辈，问罪枷锁。
逐句解 Line by line
"Who was to know that in this temple of ours the golden pagoda had been fouled, so that for these two years the foreign states have not come to court with tribute.
誰曉得 is the everyday turn for an unwelcome discovery, who was to know, and 曉得 takes the full dé. Two facts are set side by side with nothing between them — the pagoda fouled, the tribute stopped — and the whole rest of the story follows from somebody joining them up.
"Our king wished to march against them, and the officers remonstrated, saying that the monks of this temple had stolen the treasure from the pagoda, and that this was why there was no auspicious cloud and no lucky vapour, and why the foreign states did not come to court.
The officers talk the king out of a war and into a persecution, and the argument they use is not stupid: the light stopped, the light came off the pagoda, the pagoda is in the monks' keeping. 諫 is the technical word for an officer remonstrating with his sovereign — a duty, not an impertinence.
"The muddled sovereign made no inquiry at all.
Six characters, and they are the indictment. 昏君 is a fixed term for a ruler whose judgement has clouded over, and 不察理 is the failure to look into a matter. That specific dereliction is what the whole chapter turns on.
"Those corrupt officials took our whole community away, beat us a thousand ways and pressed us in ten thousand fashions.
贓官 are officials on the take. 千般 and 萬樣 are a matched intensifying pair, a thousand ways and ten thousand fashions, and 追求 here is not seeking anything but pressing a man for what he is supposed to be hiding.
"At that time there were three cohorts of monks here: the first two could not endure the beating and died; now they have taken our own cohort besides, and sentenced us to the cangue and the chain.
拷打不過 is the cannot-endure shape, a verb plus 不過, and the 不 lifts to bú before the falling tone of 過 — it does not stay at bù, as it would if 不過 were being read as a single settled word. 輩 is a cohort, one whole intake of an ordination, so three 輩 is three generations of monks and not three men.
The chain of reasoning that destroys these men is laid out in five sentences, and every link in it is defensible except the last. The tribute stopped; the light had stopped; the light came from a pagoda in the monks' care; therefore the monks took the treasure. Only the therefore is wrong, and it is wrong for the reason the very next sentence gives: nobody looked.
The officers are shown doing something creditable and something monstrous in the same speech. They talk the king out of invading four neighbouring states, which would have been a catastrophe, and they do it by handing him a target at home instead. The novel offers no comment on the exchange.
The scale is stated without emphasis and it is the worst thing in the chapter so far. Two full cohorts of an ordained community have already been beaten to death over a theft that did not happen, and the survivors are the men the pilgrims met begging in the street.