Chapter 16 Section 4 The Prosperity of Taoist Alchemy in the Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty produced many famous alchemists, and there were many books on alchemy, which are incomparable to other dynasties in history. Since Ge Hong vigorously advocated alchemy, many Taoist priests believed in it, but some people did not believe it.Tao Hongjing, for example, believed that it might not be possible to ascend to heaven by taking the Golden Elixir, and he was unwilling to spend all his energy on it.Tuobagui, Emperor Daowu of the Northern Wei Dynasty (reigned 386-409 A.D.), specially set up the post of Doctor of Immortals and asked some Taoist priests to make alchemy.After the alchemy was refined, I dared not eat it myself, but let some people who had committed capital crimes eat it, and as a result, many people were poisoned to death.Gao Yang, Emperor Wenxuan of the Northern Qi Dynasty, asked Taoist priests to refine the alchemy and put it in a box, saying that it would not be too late to eat it when he was dying.No matter inside or outside Taoism, there are people who are skeptical about alchemy.

So many Taoists tried to eliminate the toxicity of Dan.Some sank the alchemy into the well water, some immersed in the spring water in the mountains, and some treated the alchemy raw materials with various strange methods, such as boiling with pepper soup, steaming with sugarcane juice, and using the mud of old wall soil Stir and so on.As a result, many Taoist priests were poisoned and died.Therefore, alchemy has been doubted and criticized. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, advocated by Taoist priests like Qingxiazi Su Yuanlang, many alchemy priests picked up the theory of "Zhouyi Cantongqi", and alchemy was supported by the emperor, so it soon became lively again.

Alchemy in the Tang Dynasty paid the most attention to raw materials and heat.Many Taoists said that the reason why the refined elixir is poisonous lies in the raw materials.But what kind of raw material should be used, Taoist priests have different opinions.Some people say that the real golden elixir only uses two raw materials, lead and mercury.Lead in nature is a base metal with low melting point and simple smelting method. It is one of the metals recognized and used very early in human history.When lead reacts with acetic acid, basic lead carbonate can be obtained. This is a white powdery substance that can be used as a pigment. It was also commonly used as cosmetics in ancient times. It is called Hu powder, also known as lead powder.After being processed and refined by a certain process, lead can produce two kinds of oxides: one is lead monoxide, which was called Mituseng in ancient times; the other is lead trioxide, which was called lead red in ancient times.The Han Dynasty already knew how to refine lead pills.During the refining process of red lead, due to the difference in temperature and oxidation degree, it will show different degrees of yellow and red.Therefore, the ancient alchemists were very surprised and attached great importance to it.Lian also said that the lead pill "can be refined into nine lights, and it can be used for a long time to enlighten the gods".Mercury is also a mysterious substance in the eyes of the ancients.Natural mercury exists in nature, but it is rare and not easy to collect.Most of the mercury used in ancient times was refined from cinnabar.Mercury is a liquid at normal temperature with a large specific gravity, but its boiling point is only 357°C, so it is easy to evaporate and lose when heated.Mercury is also easily smelted to form red mercury oxide.A book on alchemy in the Tang Dynasty, "Dragon and Tiger Yuanzhi", said: "Dinsha enters the fire and turns into mercury (that is, mercury), which can be heavy or light, can be gods and spirits, can be black and white, and can be dark and bright." Many alchemists in history advocated that only lead and mercury were used in alchemy, so alchemy has another name, called lead and mercury.But the golden elixir obtained in this way still cannot become a celestial being after eating.So it was proposed to use other raw materials.As a result, because of the different opinions about the raw materials used, it was divided into many schools of alchemy.

The heat is the size of the fire and the length of the smelting time during alchemy.The fierce fire is called Wuhuo, and the small fire is called simmering fire.Some Taoist priests advocate alchemy before literature and martial arts, while others advocate martial arts before literature.Some advocate smelting for seventy-seven forty-nine days, while others say that it takes one year for the pill to be successful.There are really people who go into the deep mountains and guard the alchemy furnace all year round. They are meticulous about when to add fire and when to anneal every day and night. In order to become a fairy, they are not afraid of hard work at all.

There were many emperors who supported alchemy in the Tang Dynasty.Tang Taizong was a wise emperor. When he was young, he did not believe that eating pills could lead to immortality.In his later years, he was afraid of death, so he sent people several times across the country to look for "wonderful medicines and strange stones". It is said that he died of poisoning after eating a "long-living medicine" made by a foreign monk. Tang Gaozong once summoned more than 100 Taoist priests to engage in alchemy. Later, he also planned to take the medicine of monk Hu. He was reminded to learn the lesson of Taizong, but he did not dare to take it.

Alchemy was most popular during the Tang Xuanzong period.During the Kaiyuan period, Xuanzong asked the Taoist priest Sun Taichong to refine the "divine elixir" for him, and asked the Taoist priest Wu Yun about burning the golden elixir and becoming immortal.Zhang Guo, a famous alchemist in the Tang Dynasty, was also called into the palace, and Xuanzong even wanted to marry his daughter to him.During the Tianbao period, he hired Luo Siyuan and others to make alchemy for him, and he also learned to do it himself, which shows how fascinated he is. In the mid-Tang Dynasty, Xianzong, Muzong and Jingzong were all keen on alchemy. Taoist Liu Mi told Xianzong that "spiritual grass" grew on Tiantai Mountain, and picking it to make alchemy and make medicine would be successful.Tiantai Mountain was in Taizhou, so Emperor Xianzong simply taught him to become an official in Taizhou.Liu Mi went to Taizhou for a while, but he didn't make Dan, so he was afraid that he would lose his head, so he fled into the mountains.Later, when he was arrested, Emperor Xianzong didn't punish him and asked him to make alchemy.Later, Xianzong took Liu Bilian's elixir, and his temper became violent due to the onset of toxicity. Several eunuchs were afraid and found an opportunity to kill him.When Mu Zonggang came to the throne, he ordered Liu Mi and others to be sentenced to death.But soon I also started taking pills.In the first year of Baoli (825 A.D.), Jingzong sent people to the Yangtze River Basin and Tiantai Mountain in the south to collect herbs.He reigned for less than three years and was killed by eunuchs, which is said to be related to taking elixir.

In the late Tang Dynasty, Wuzong and Xuanzong believed in alchemy the most.Wu Zong took the elixir, "since autumn and winter, he felt ill, but the Taoist thought it was a bone change, so he kept secret the matter" ("Zizhi Tongjian·Tang Ji Sixty-Four"), his condition became serious later, and he died at the age of 33 up.Xuanzong still didn't learn his lesson, and he also took the elixir and died. The emperor was superstitious, and a bunch of bureaucrats and literati followed suit.Han Yu, a famous writer and a great bureaucrat, wrote an "Epitaph" for others, in which it is recorded that six or seven great bureaucrats died after taking elixir.For example, Guideng, Shangshu (official name) of the Ministry of Industry, has taken mercury for a long time, and can often be found where he sits and sleeps.As a result, he was in pain all over his body due to mercury poisoning, and he vomited blood for more than ten years and died.Another bureaucrat, Xiangyang Jiedu Envoy Meng Jian, was very close to Han Yu.He got a kind of "miracle medicine" and specially invited Han Yu, saying that he didn't want to live forever alone, so he was willing to give some to Han Yu.Later, the Jiedu envoy took medicine, fell ill for several years, and eventually died.Some people developed lumps of flesh and blood after taking the golden elixir, and died of pain.

Among poets, like Wang Bo, one of the "Four Heroes" in the early Tang Dynasty, he was very obsessed with learning from immortals and seeking Taoism.Lu Zhaolin once went to the mountains to learn Taoism, and later he was poisoned by taking cinnabar prescriptions, and almost lost his life, but he still didn't give up, and wrote to friends in Luoyang, asking them for cinnabar.Famous poets such as Li Bai and Bai Juyi have learned alchemy from Taoist priests.Bai Juyi was particularly interested in "Zhou Yi Can Tong Qi". Together with another poet Yuan Zhen, he learned how to make alchemy with Taoist Guo Xuzhou. However, he failed because he did not control the temperature of the fire and let the mercury boil and disperse at high temperature.He was very annoyed and wrote a poem, lamenting that he had no fate with gods.Li Bai roamed around famous mountains in the world, visiting immortals everywhere to seek Taoism.Especially when he arrived in Chang'an at the emperor's edict, and soon had to leave the capital because of the crowding out by the eunuch Gao Lishi and others. Alchemy costs flint, and collecting medicines makes mountains and rivers poor." ("Farewell to the Lords of Guangling") In Li Bai's poems, there are no less than 100 poems related to visiting Taoism and alchemy.

Because the raw materials used in Taoist alchemy are mainly lead, mercury, sulfur and some minerals containing arsenic, after eating, it is very harmful to the human body.As for cinnabar, because it will also turn into mercury after smelting, it will still be poisoned if eaten.Many people lost their lives, why do others follow suit?Han Yu said in the "Epitaph" that many people think that the dead are because they have not learned the true method, and they believe that what they have learned can not be wrong.After taking the elixir, just after the onset of toxicity, I thought it was a change of bones and tendons, and it was the elixir that was exerting its "magic effect".I didn't fully wake up until the drug poison broke out, but it was too late.Many Taoists firmly believe in taking pills to become immortals, saying that those who died after taking pills did not really die, but became immortals.They leave corpses behind, and this kind of fairy is called "shijie fairy".In some literary works that promote Taoist beliefs, there are many stories of such corpses turning into immortals.There are also some Taoist priests who are more sober. For example, the Taoist work "Xuanjielu" says:

Golden elixirs and various stone medicines have their own natures, and they contain great poisons.Taoist priests obeyed it, and since Xixuan (referring to Fuxi and Huangdi), there has never been one, and there has been no immortal. People in the society criticize alchemy even more.After the Tang Dynasty, although there were still people who practiced alchemy, they were no longer the mainstream of Taoist practice. In the development history of more than 1,000 years, Taoist alchemy has accumulated a lot of chemical knowledge about cinnabar, mercury and lead.Taoist priests in the Tang Dynasty had an "accident" in the alchemy process and accidentally discovered the violent nature of gunpowder combustion, which eventually led to the invention of gunpowder. This is a very valuable discovery.In particular, many alchemists study medicine in order to prevent poisoning, and they are also medical scientists.People like Ge Hong, Tao Hongjing, and Sun Simiao have all contributed to the development of Chinese medicine.The results of alchemy were later absorbed by medicine, and many of them were used as surgical drugs.