Today, the editor of the History Encyclopedia will introduce to you why Ming Chengzu Zhu Di wanted to arrest nuns nationwide, hoping to be helpful to you.
In 1420, Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di, suddenly issued an order to arrest all nuns and female Taoists in the country and send them to the capital for interrogation to determine their actual identities. This incident has never happened before in history, and its appearance has made the tranquility of the millennium Buddhist temple very chaotic. Why did Zhu Di do this?
As for nuns, they are all women who practice in the temple, in order to keep their ears pure and not to think about any troublesome things, without any involvement with the court. But these nuns who lived in the Ming Dynasty were pursued and disturbed by the court.
This is because there was a peasant uprising in Shandong. It is said that in the 18th year of the Yongle reign, Tang Saier gathered many followers of the White Lotus in his hometown of Binzhou, Shandong, and used the red and white flag as a banner to launch an uprising, vowing to resist the court.
This peasant uprising, because of its small scale, did not last long, and did not affect the political power of the court, is not recorded in general historical books. But at that time, when Zhu Di heard about this matter, he seemed very nervous. Not only did he send 5000 elite soldiers from the capital, but he also used the troops that resisted the Japanese pirates on the coast of Shandong in the struggle of this peasant uprising. To eliminate external enemies, we need to first resolve internal issues.
According to analysis, there should be several reasons. The first point is that this incident occurred before the capital was to be relocated to Beijing, which immediately affected Zhu Di’s political achievements. He definitely couldn’t cause any trouble at this time. The second point is that this rebel army is backed by the White Lotus Sect, and some of its disciples are very loyal to Tang Saier. No matter what she says, they will do it. Zhu Di absolutely cannot let this so-called cult harm the country.
In the end, it was due to the gradual increase in the power of the rebel army that they were able to defeat the officials and soldiers of the court. Moreover, the court repeatedly threatened to surrender Tang Saier, but unfortunately, they ignored this and made the court and Emperor Zhu Di lose face. For these reasons, Zhu Di was extremely resentful towards Tang Saier, so he had to launch a crazy attack on this rebel army. Because the rebel army had not yet grown up, and the court had deployed a large number of troops to suppress it, it did not persist for three months before disbanding. In the end, Tang Sai’er did not know where she had fled to.
But at this moment, Zhu Di still felt uneasy in his heart, afraid that Tang Saier would flee to another place and reorganize the rebel army to oppose the court, so he sent someone to find Tang Saier. But after a long search, she was not found in the public. Finally, I decided to search inside the Buddhist temple. Because the people inside this Buddhist sect usually have little interaction with the common people. The government has not intervened in these years, so there is a high possibility that she has infiltrated the Buddhist sect and gone into hiding.
So Zhu Di sent people to arrest all the nuns and female Taoists in Beijing and Shandong, and finally sent them to the authorities for investigation. Afterwards, Zhu Di sent Duan Ming to handle this matter, and Duan Ming was also tasked with completing this task. Not only did he arrest nuns from Shandong and Beijing, but he also arrested tens of thousands of nuns nationwide. Even so, when Zhu Di died, Tang Saier was never caught. Because this matter did not gain the support of the people, even the extreme method of arresting nuns across the country to search for them did not yield a satisfactory solution. Where did Tang Saier go in the end? For so many years, no one has found this answer.
Nowadays, many experts are searching for the ultimate destination of this female hero in history books, but they have never found it. Perhaps she has been hiding in some deep mountain for her whole life and has not come out, or she has already died of illness somewhere. These are all possible.
