Confucianism is the three major religions in ancient China, of which Confucianism is the Confucianism founded by Confucius, Buddhism refers to Buddhism, Tao refers to the chinese indigenous religion Taoism, in these three major religions, only Buddhism is a foreign religion, which was transmitted to China during the Eastern Han Dynasty. After Buddhism spread to China, the scale continued to expand, especially during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, which reached its peak, from Du Mu's sentence "Four hundred and eighty temples in the Southern Dynasty, how many buildings and terraces in the smoke and rain" can be seen how prosperous Buddhism was at that time, and there were many emperors who respected Buddhism, of which Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu said the most, but there were also some emperors who hated Buddhism and even destroyed Buddhism on a large scale.
There have been four large-scale campaigns to extinguish Buddhism in Chinese history, namely the "Three Wu and One Sect" to extinguish the Buddha, "Three Wu and One Sect" refers to the Northern Wei Dynasty Emperor Taiwu Tuoba Tao, the Northern Zhou Zhou Wu Emperor Yuwen Yong, the Tang Wuzong Li Yan and the Later Zhou Shizong Emperor Chai Rong, the largest of which was the "Northern Wei Taiwu Annihilation of the Buddha", the Taiwu Emperor Tuoba Tao was a Taoist, originally did not have a cold interest in Buddhism, plus the Buddhists did not pay taxes, did not serve and also wantonly gathered incense and fire money, so Emperor Taiwu ordered the destruction of the Buddha in a rage: "Zhao Zhuzhou Pit Shamen, destroy the statues of the Buddhas." "If anyone dares to hide a monk privately, he will be severely punished!" Later, Yuwen Yong, Li Yan, and Chai Rong, who destroyed the Buddha, can be regarded as promising kings, believing that Buddhism occupies a large number of national resources, and the monks eat and pray the Buddha all day long without producing anything, and have no contribution to the country, so in order to promote the national economic development, they have eliminated the Buddha on a large scale. So what happened to these four emperors who destroyed Buddhism on a large scale?
First of all, the Northern Wei Taiwu Emperor Tuoba Tao, who was the third emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, reigned for 29 years, and successively attacked Hu Xia, unified the north, suppressed Gai Wu, broke Rouran, and attacked Liu Song in the south, and finally realized the grand wish of "drinking horses on the Yangtze River", which can be called a generation of male lords. However, in his later years, Tuoba Tao's temper became particularly grumpy, and he killed people at every turn, and even forced the death of Tuoba Huang, the prince of Jingmu, at the instigation of Zong Ai, the prince of Jingmu, and in the second year of Zhengping (452), Zong Ai killed Emperor Taiwu, and tuoba Tao, a generation of male lords, died at the age of 45.
Then let's talk about the Zhou Wu Emperor Yuwen Yong, who was the third emperor of Northern Zhou, and after becoming emperor, he first successfully killed the powerful minister Yuwen Hu and took charge of the imperial government alone, and then implemented the Juntian system and the prefectural military system, destroying Northern Qi in one fell swoop. Under yuwen yong's governance, the Northern Zhou dynasty was strong and the people's lives were stable. In May of the first year of Xuanzheng (578), Emperor Wu of Zhou personally led a large army to attack the Turks, but suddenly fell ill on the way, so he had to return to the dynasty, but on the day of returning to Luoyang, he died of illness, and died young at the age of 36, which is a pity!
Then there is Tang Wuzong Li Yan, although Li Yan reigned for only 7 years, but created the "Huichang Zhongxing", he vigorously attacked the feudal towns and Buddhism internally, because he was a Taoist himself, plus Buddhism was too prosperous to damage the national treasury income, so he ordered the extinction of Buddhism, known in history as "Huichang annihilation of Buddha", this move expanded the Tang Dynasty's tax sources, consolidated centralized power, and defeated the Uighurs externally. In 846, Emperor Wuzong of Tang died at the age of 31.
Finally, let's talk about the Later Zhou Emperor Chai Rong, Chai Rong was called "the first Ming Emperor of the Five Dynasties" by historians, he joined the army at the age of 15, worshiped the general at the age of 24, became the emperor at the age of 33, after becoming emperor, he formulated a 30-year plan: ten years to expand the world, ten years to feed the people, ten years to taiping, and then he continued to conquer the northern war in the south, successively defeated HouShu in the west, fought in the south against the Southern Tang, and broke the Khitan in the north, but unfortunately, The Heavenly Jealousy, Chai Rong died young, and died at the age of 39. After his death, Zhao Kuangyin Chen Qiao mutinied the yellow robe and took the Chai family to establish the Song Dynasty.