Qiu Chuji and Genghis Khan once had a meeting that will go down in history. In the early years of the rise of Mongolia, Taoism also became famous in northern China, and the Seven Quanzhen Sons were well supported by the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties. But the good times did not last long. After Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty, he began to suppress Taoism.
Why did Kublai Khan suppress Taoism? The reason has something to do with his uncle Wokuotai. Kublai Khan was the son of Tolei, the fourth son of Genghis Khan, and Ogedai was the third son of Genghis Khan. Toolei and Ogedai had been at odds over the competition for the throne of Khan.
Later, when Kublai Khan established himself as Khan, the descendants of Ogedai refused to accept Kublai Khan's throne and rebelled repeatedly in the northwest. Since the Mongol and Yuan aristocrats of the Ogedai family always respected Taoism, Kublai regarded Taoism as an old party of the Ogedai family and was even more suspicious of it.
Later, He Juchuan, a Taoist priest from the Changchun Palace in Yanjing, wrote another letter to prevent Kublai Khan from attacking the Song Dynasty. Someone with good intentions took the opportunity to slander him, saying that Taoism was not of the same mind as Kublai Khan, and falsely accused Quanzhen Taoist of his past. Relying on the power of Yuan Taizu and Yuan Taizong, they occupied more than 480 Buddhist temples. This accusation was very cunning and caused great disaster to Taoism.
In the second year after the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty (to the 18th year of the Yuan Dynasty), Kublai Khan held a debate meeting on Buddhism and Taoism to protect Buddha and restrain Taoism. He built a sutra-burning platform in Yanjing and ordered the collection and burning of Taoist classics. He also ordered all places to build sutra-burning platforms, and confiscated Taoist sutras and printing plates nationwide for destruction. This is the famous "disaster of burning scriptures in the Yuan Dynasty" in the history of the Yuan Dynasty.
The "disaster of the burning of scriptures in the Yuan Dynasty" is the biggest legal disaster for Taoism in Chinese history. After the burning of scriptures, the Mongolian and Yuan ruling groups also changed their previous religious policies. Ancient Chinese Taoist classics were preserved in the Yuan Dynasty Most of them were left incomplete after the fire.
This time the destruction and ban of "Tao Zang" was carried out very thoroughly, and the people did not dare to hide it. It caused an unprecedented disaster in the history of Chinese culture, which will never be rectified.
In the Qing Dynasty, the Manchus occupied the Central Plains and had certain discrimination and scruples against the Han people. Although there was no excessive damage to "Tao Zang", spiritually, no effort was spared to attack and suppress Taoism, which represented Han culture. For example, Zhang Tianshi, who governed Taoism in the world, was demoted from the second rank of the national master to the fifth rank. The rank is not as good as that of a prefect.
In the late Qing Dynasty, Taoist temples in many counties were converted into Buddhist temples by the Qing government. For example, in Taiwan, it is stipulated that temples cannot have Taoist statues. In order to preserve Taoism, many Han people have converted Taoist temples into Buddhist temples to preserve Taoist statues. After three hundred years of suppression by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Taoism has still not been able to fully recover.
The greatness of a nation lies in its culture. Mr. Chen Yining, a generation of Taoist immortals who is well-known at home and abroad in modern times, once said: "Taoism is the spiritual sustenance of the Chinese nation. We must not belittle ourselves and destroy our pearls. Invasion by force. We can still use force to deal with them; if culture and religion invade us, my force will be useless.
If we do not use our country’s inherent culture and religion to resist, we will see that thousands of years of traditional thought will lose its foundation and eventually its faith. How can the disaster be overstated?”