In the early Ming Dynasty, Confucian scholars had a very high status. What would have happened if Confucian scholars had been vilified at that time? In fact, someone did it. He is the first hero in Jingnan, and Yao is a red man around him, but even if he slanders Confucian scholars, the consequences are quite serious.
Since Zhao and Song Dynasties, Confucian scholars have played an increasingly important role in politics. In particular, Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi and Zhu reformed the traditional Confucianism, and after establishing Neo-Confucianism, it was gradually accepted by the rulers and became their official school, which had a great influence on all aspects of the whole society.
In this social background, the status of Confucian scholars has been greatly strengthened. The three cardinals, five certificates and sages they said seemed to be the political correctness of that era, and few people dared to refute them openly.
Yao was a famous writer, politician and Buddhist in the early Ming Dynasty. In the whole battle of Jingnan, he instigated Judy to rebel, and provided him with strategies many times on the battlefield to help him enter Nanjing smoothly and become the Yongle emperor.
Later, Yao was also highly respected by others, calling him "Fei" and giving him many gold, silver and jewels. However, he is not interested in these external things. On the contrary, he made it his lifelong career to publicize the Buddhist and Taoist thoughts in his heart.
In the early Ming Dynasty, Buddhism declined obviously, and many people showed a tendency to respect Confucianism and despise Buddhism. In this context, Yao chose to write a book, Tao, to protect the Buddhist cause as much as possible.
Yao's book is aimed at Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi in the Northern Song Dynasty and Zhu in the Southern Song Dynasty. Most of the works handed down by these three great scholars are people who reject Buddhism for their own selfish interests. To this end, Yao specially selected more than 40 representative quotations, refuted them one by one in Tao, and trumpeted the position of Buddhism.
The appearance of Tao is a great event in the history of Buddhism, but it has caused a lot of trouble to Yao himself, because from the standpoint of Confucian scholars, Yao's purpose in writing this book is obviously to discredit Confucianism.
Many Confucian scholars took this opportunity to begin to despise him. As Yao is a red man around him, these Confucian scholars naturally dare not do any practical harm, but constantly give Yao a cold shoulder and try to isolate him.
Once, Yao went to Suzhou for disaster relief and wanted to visit his sister in Changzhou. However, as soon as my sister heard that Yao had written a book to denigrate Confucianism and was afraid of getting into trouble, she closed the door directly, so that Yao was really turned away.
Later, Yao wanted to visit his friend Wang Bin. Wang Bin didn't come to see him behind closed doors. He just sent Yao a message saying, "The monk made a mistake." When he came back, he wanted to see his sister again and was scolded by his peers. This not only makes Yao feel melancholy, but in fact he still won't regret his maintenance of Buddhism.