much as in the sixteenth century Henry VIII and his successors moved against the vast inherited wealth of the Catholic Church in England. In the early 840s, a massive campaign of temple closures began. It was brutal, sweeping and destructive. The government’s persecution of the Buddhists between 842 and 846 came at time of growing internal and external threats, when marauding private armies threatened the Yellow River heartland and pirate fleets plundered the coasts. In the far west, Turkic and Uighur kings and warlords overran the frontier provinces. It was in this troubled time that Wuzong
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