During the earlier Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty in ancient China, a merchant by the name of Jin in Yizheng County of Jiangsu Province, opened a pawnshop. He was honest and treated people coming to pawn their goods with fairness. He also gave generous appraisals and allowed a longer redeeming time compared to other pawnshops and when a poor elder came to pawn their goods, he often made an exception to charging any interest.
Once, during the coldest days in the year, a farmer's wife fell ill and didn't have the money to pay for a doctor to treat her or any medicines for her to take so the farmer took his winter cotton clothes to pawn. Jin let the farmer redeem his cotton clothing without charging any interest. He helped many destitute people out of their troubles. Even so, his pawnshop was prosperous and he became a rich local merchant.
One year, a group of bandits came to town and many rich families were looted. But strangely, Jin's pawnshop wasn't robbed.
The local authorities suspected that Jin had colluded with the bandits, but they had no proof. Later, when the bandits were captured and interrogated, the authorities then found out the real reason Jin's shop wasn't robbed: When the bandits went to Jin' shop, they saw numerous gods in armor on top of his shop that they didn't dare to enter it.
People realized that, because of Jin's doing good deeds, the gods protected him and prevented him from being robbed.
From Taishang Ganying Writing by Zhao Xiongzhao in the Qing dynasty
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