Seven ‘All True’ Greats IV

While Ma Yu (馬鈺) was away from Ninghai (寧海), Liu was preaching All True gospel in Donglai in Shandong (山東東萊). When Ma was coming back to Ninghai from western China, he stayed over at Donglai. Liu went to welcome him to Donglai. Ma was displeased when they met. Liu was in his Sunday best. “You are too luxurious,” Ma chided Liu. “I’ve heard,” Liu retorted, “that a man who is practicing Taoist and Buddhist rules used to spend tens of thousands of taels of gold a day.” That referred to Ma, who was a very rich merchant in Ninghai before becoming an apostle of Wang Chong-yang (王重陽), the founder of the All True sect. Wang took a vow of poverty and started his mendicant life after becoming an All True adherent. Practitioners of All True Taoism were required to live like mendicant friars.

“Yes, it’s true,” Ma Yu replied. “Just because he spent tens of thousands of taels a day,” Ma went on, “that man has to live on the meager meal he begs for every day.” That was a quick and poignant riposte. The Eternal Life was ashamed. He took off his best clothes. He never got well dressed again in his lifetime.

Those were the times when the Mongols were fighting the Jurchens to dominate northern China, while the Southern Song dynasts could rule the part of China south of the Yangtze River. The Jurchen court in Beijing relaxed its religious policy and allowing the sales of plaques for Taoist temples and those of certificates for Buddhist monks and nuns at the time of ordainment to raise the revenue needed to continue the war with the Mongols. Liu Chu-xuan was thus able to have many an All True temple erected in Donglai.

As it happened, the Jurchen court assigned a top general, who was a son-in-law of the emperor, to garrison Laizhou (萊州), a populous county in Shandong. Alarmed by the popularity of All True Taoism in his jurisdiction, the general had Liu arrested on charges of conspiracy to start a rebellion. But as soon as the mendicant friar had been securely placed under custody, he appeared out of the Laizhou castle preaching his gospel to the faithful. Nobody knew how Liu could escape from the detention house. The general had to cancel his order to arrest and execute the Eternal Life. The Emperor Zhang-zhong (章宗) of the Jin or Kin or Jurchen Dynasty (1190-1209) summoned him to court for an audience and granted five imperial plaques to as many All True temples in Shandong.

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