I believe that many people have seen Mr. Jin Yong's "Yitian Slaughtering Dragon" novel or its remake of the TV series, the protagonist Zhang Wuji is the Ming Sect Leader, as the promoter of the entire plot, I believe many people will also be curious, what is the origin of this Ming Sect, why was it initially boycotted by the Six Gate Sect? In the history of the canon, but rarely heard of the name of the Ming Sect?
In fact, in history, Mingjiao is also real, perhaps you are more familiar with another religion derived from it: White Lotus Sect, let's take a look at the story of Mingjiao!
As the Book of the Dragon Slayer says, Mingism is a religion from the West, and the founder, a man named Mani, was born in 216 AD in the Persian Empire in the northern part of Babylon, which is now Iraq, Mani was born into a clergy family, and his father was a small priest of the Christian branch, which also provided great inspiration for Mani to establish his own religion.
Later Mani, began to claim to have been inspired by angels, was the "messenger of light" sent by God to the earthly world, the source of Ming religion: Manichaeism was also officially born, and soon Mani gained a large number of believers in The Persian back with his personal charm, Mani summed up and summarized the velvet of all the religions at that time, he claimed to be the successor of Buddha, Jesus and Zoroastrian (the founder of Zoroastrianism), and had the responsibility to spread the teachings to the whole world. Therefore, Mani left Persia with his followers and came to India to preach, and the soldiers succeeded in converting the then King Duran to Manichaeism, and after Mani returned to Persia, the Persian Sassanid Dynasty was considered to be in its own rule, recognized Manichae's legal status, and allowed him to carry out missionary work throughout the country, so That Manichaeism was able to expand further.
With the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures, like Buddhism in India, Manichaeism also actively explored the East, not that it did not achieve great success as Buddhism, mainly for several reasons, first, the Manichaean trade was too cumbersome for the Chinese people to understand, and second, the imperial court also regarded Manichaeism as a heretical doctrine and banned it.
However, Manichaean believers have never given up their mission to the Central Plains, about the 6th to the 7th century, Manichaeism was introduced to China's Xinjiang region, followed by the introduction of Mobei Huiyi, to the open Tang Dynasty, The Tang Dynasty, Jianghuai and other places also created Manichae Temple, in 845 AD When Tang Wuzong destroyed Buddhism, Manichaeism was once again severely damaged and randomly became a secret religion that could not be put on the table.
In successive failures, Manichaeism also realized that going into the countryside and following customs is a very important thing, so they actively absorbed Taoism and folk beliefs, so as to change it to Mingjiao in China, which can show that the transformation of the religion is still very successful, but because the doctrine of the Ming religion is to believe that darkness will eventually pass, and the content of the future of light is always a factor of instability, becoming the main origin of civil rebellion, the imperial court is also a severe blow to this, from the last years of the Northern Song Dynasty to the Yuan Ming, the Ming Sect repeatedly launched uprisings. It became a headache for the rulers. Why did the Ming Sect suddenly disappear in an instant?
It turned out that after Zhu Yuanzhang came to power, he went to Li Shanchang's suggestion, issued an edict strictly prohibiting the White Lotus Society and the Ming Sect, and wrote the prohibition of "left-way evil arts" into the eleventh "Ritual Law" of the "Ming Law" and fixed it in the form of law. Although Zhu Yuanzhang killed heroes during his reign, he treated the common people very well after tasting the sufferings of the people, and the Ming Dynasty had very few taxes, so under the high-pressure policy of the Ming Court, no one risked killing the head to believe in the Ming Religion, but at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was also the Qing Dynasty, and it appeared in the form of the White Lotus Sect, which was another matter