Lv Dongbin is not only one of the Eight Immortals, but also known as the "Three Immortals" together with Guan Yu and Guanyin Bodhisattva. At the same time, he is not a fictional mythical figure, but the founder of Taoist Quanzhen School with real history. Lv Dongbin, formerly known as Lv Yan, was born in Tang Dezong. He once had the ambition to cultivate one's morality, put his family in order, and rule the country and level the world. He studied Confucian classics from an early age and was brilliant. He was the top student in the senior high school entrance examination and worked as a local official.
Later, due to the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion in the late Tang Dynasty, there was a situation of continuous war in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and the officialdom was corrupt. Lv Dongbin saw that his ambition to govern the country was difficult to realize, so he resigned and took his wife to live in seclusion in the mountains. Later, in the process of cultivation, he named himself Lv Dongbin, a Taoist priest. Among them, the double mouth is "Lu", which means that husband and wife live in a cave to practice, and "cave" refers to the cave for practice; "Bin" means to tell people that they are guests in the cave.
According to legend, after practicing in the mountains for a period of time, Lv Dongbin went out to travel to Lushan Mountain and met a real dragon on the way. Real people taught him swordsmanship in order to help him punish evil and promote good in the future. At the age of 64, I met my disciple Zhong and taught him the true Tao. In memory of him, people built the "Lv Gong Temple" in Ruicheng, Shanxi.
The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty established by foreigners (ethnic minorities other than the Han nationality in ancient times were collectively called foreigners) wanted to consolidate their political power and strengthen their control over the country by controlling religion. Knowing that Taoism, which Lv Dongbin believed in, was well-known among the people, they sent Buddhist Qiu Chuji to take charge of Taoism, dismantled the "Lu Public Relations" and built the "Yongle Palace" on the original site.
1959, the Three Gorges Reservoir was on the verge of bursting its banks, and Yongle Palace was in danger of being destroyed by floods. In order to protect ancient cultural relics, experts and scholars excavated Yongle Palace overnight. In the process of excavation, they didn't want to dig into Lv Dongbin's tomb, and this ancient tomb buried underground for thousands of years finally surfaced. Lv Dongbin's tomb is very simple. As the founder of Taoism Quanzhen religion, people have worshipped it for thousands of years, but the tomb is only 7 square meters.
There is a coffin in it, and nothing else. Lv Dongbin and his wife are lying in the coffin, surrounded by seven coins in the shape of the Big Dipper. But a closer look at these seven copper coins makes people feel incredible. Of these seven coins, four are Kaiyuan Bao Tong, two are Xiangfu Bao Tong, and one is a natural gold ingot. Lv Dongbin was a figure in Tang Dezong period, and Bao Tong in Hunan Province was the currency in circulation in Song Zhenzong period.
These Song Dynasty copper coins were separated from the mid-Tang Dynasty, where Lv Dongbin lived for more than 200 years. People can't help wondering whether there really are immortals in the world. Did Lv Dongbin really practice successfully and live for more than 200 years? Or maybe it's not Lv Dongbin's tomb at all, but the tomb of a man with the same name as Lv Dongbin in the Tang Dynasty in the Song Dynasty?
But experts found the epitaph of the tomb owner, which confirmed that the tomb owner was indeed Lv Dongbin. We can see from the records in the History of Song Dynasty that Lv Dongbin is good at fencing, but he is still a child in his 100 s, with strong body and brisk steps. People all think that he is a fairy. As far as the scientific knowledge we have today is concerned, there are no gods and ghosts in the world, and it is impossible for a person to break through the limitations of the human body and live to be over 200 years old. Could Lv Dongbin not be from the Tang Dynasty at all, but from the Song Dynasty?