The moment
Emperor Wuzong, a devout Daoist facing an empty treasury, ordered Buddhist monasteries closed, their land and wealth seized and their monks and nuns sent back to lay life; the government's own count put the laicised at more than 260,000. Zoroastrians and the Christians of the Church of the East were shut down too. The Japanese pilgrim Ennin lived through it and described it in his diary. The suppression ended soon after Wuzong's death in 846.
People: Emperor Wuzong, Ennin