In the fifth year of Huichang (845 AD), a vigorous campaign to exterminate Buddhism was launched throughout the country. Tang Wuzong was a devout Taoist who had believed in a Taoist priest named Zhao Guizhen from the day he ascended the throne and learned spells from him. In addition, Hengshan Taoist Liu Xuanjing, Luofu Taoist Deng Yuanqi and others also served as officials in Wuzong's imperial court, teaching the art of immortality.
Under the influence of the Taoist priests, Wuzong suppressed Buddhism, but until 845 AD, all actions were sporadic until this year, when Wuzong decided to launch a full-scale campaign to exterminate Buddhism.
In April of that year, Emperor Wuzong asked the ancestral department that manages the monastic path to conduct an investigation and found that there were already 4,600 monasteries, 40,000 monks (lanruo), and 260,050 monks and nuns, accounting for more than 0.5 percent of the country's population. In July, the emperor officially issued a decree to destroy the Buddha.
Zhongshumen went up and asked to leave a temple in each major state, and some temples had statues of emperors and sages, and people could be moved to this reserved temple. As for small states, there is no need to keep Buddhist temples. Ten temples are kept in the east and west, each with ten monks. The emperor replied: If there are beautiful temples in the great state, you can consider keeping one, and if not, you don't need to keep it. Both can consider keeping four schools of thirty monks each. Among them, the left half of Chang'an, the upper capital, retains Ci'en Temple and Jianfu Temple, and the right half retains Ximing Temple and Zhuangyan Temple. Except for the dozens of temples that the emperor allowed to remain, the rest of the temples were destroyed, and all monks and nuns were restored.
Buddhism, which had been flourishing during the Tang Dynasty, suddenly suffered a devastating blow. In addition to Buddhism, there were Christianity (Nestorianism) and Persian religion from Central Asia at that time. There are about three thousand monks in these two sects. Emperor Wuzong decided not to keep even these two sects, and three thousand monks changed careers together.
However, three months later, new troubles came. In addition to being a faith, Buddhism is also a set of charities. In the Tang Dynasty, Buddhist temples were responsible for supporting the weak, sick and disabled, and after the Buddhist temple closed, these people had no landing, most of them were poor and sick, and they were on the verge of death. The destruction of Buddha became a lever for people to criticize the emperor.
Emperor Wuzong of Tang had to order the governments of the capital and prefectures to allocate a certain amount of land, use the rent of the land to support these people, and turn the charity that was originally run by a Buddhist temple into a public one. Of course, this institution will not be efficient, but it can gag critics.
Through this series of measures, Tang Wuzong joined a short list, and history gave this short list a name: "Three Wu and One Sect". In Chinese history, there were four emperors who exterminated Buddha on a large scale, namely Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei, Emperor Wudi of Northern Zhou, Emperor Wuzong of Tang, and Emperor Shizong of Later Zhou during the Five Dynasties period.
Tang Wuzong suffered "retribution" the following year: his trusted Taoist priests kept him to take pills, which were too toxic and eventually poisoned to death. The newly ascended Emperor Xuanzong of Tang immediately abolished Emperor Wuzong's measures to exterminate Buddha. At that time, due to the death of the old emperor, many monks secretly returned to the ruined temple. Emperor Xuanzong ordered that the monks should return and the government should not interfere.
Buddhists only look at things from the point of view of doctrine and karma, and never think that it is not faith that causes them trouble, but wealth.
There is only one reason for the "Three Martial Sects" to destroy Buddhas: finances. What they care about is not whether the sutras are right or wrong, but three things:
The first is the human resources of Buddhist temples. Every temple was filled with young and strong monks, but not only did they not work, but they also did not pay taxes and perform servitude, and the government had long wanted to beat their minds.
The second is the land of Buddhist temples. According to tradition, the land of Buddhist temples is tax-free. When the government taxes were too strict, people even gave land to temples and then became tenants of temple land, and the income was more cost-effective than owning land. But the government has lost a lot of revenue as a result.
The third is the bronze statue of the Buddhist temple. In the late Tang Dynasty, due to the government's monopoly on coinage, there was a lack of copper and money, and there were a large number of bronze statues in Buddhist temples that could be used to mint money.
Tang Wuzong's extermination of Buddha completely solved the problem, which can be described as fruitful. According to his summary report, the central government received a lot of revenue: 260,000 monks and nuns were converted to lay people, and became two tax households; At the same time, the 150,000 slaves employed by the Buddhist temple also became two tax households; In addition, the government has added tens of millions of hectares of land, all of which are of the highest quality. As for the Buddha statue, there is no way to give a specific estimate. However, when the emperor ordered the Buddha statues to be minted into copper coins, the government's minting authorities could not melt so many bronze statues. When a large number of copper coins poured into the market, prices across the country immediately became chaotic. By the time of Emperor Xuanzong, the government recast some coins into bronze statues to reduce the amount of money dropped.
After Emperor Xuanzong restored Buddhism, he did not reallocate the relevant land resources to Buddhist temples, and he enjoyed the benefits of Wuzong's extermination of Buddha, but avoided the notoriety of destroying Buddha, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone.