A comparison of how Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism fared under the exact same decree.

While Zoroastrianism (Xianjiao) and Manichaeism (Mingjiao) were both outlawed under Emperor Wuzong's zero-tolerance campaign against "foreign heretical pollutions", they fared very differently under the execution of the decree. 

While Zoroastrianism was fundamentally crushed within China by the forced laicization of its clergy, Manichaeism suffered brutal state-sanctioned executions but successfully survived long-term by mutating into an underground movement. 

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1. Zoroastrianism: The Quiet Dissolution

Zoroastrianism had historically been permitted in China largely as an ethnic religion catering to Central Asian and Sogdian merchants. Because it never actively sought massive numbers of native Chinese converts, its infrastructure was entirely reliant on its official urban temples. 

• The Execution: When the 845 CE decree forced more than 3,000 foreign priests (combining Christians and Zoroastrians) to return to lay life, the state effectively broke the line of Zoroastrian ritual priesthood (mōg). 
• The Reaction: Lacking a framework for underground cellular survival or monastic translation, the followers complied with the bureaucratic order.
• The Fate: The religion immediately lost its public footing. The temples faded into historical obscurities. By the 12th century, the core tenets were entirely forgotten by the public, and Zoroastrianism vanished entirely from Chinese texts after the Southern Song dynasty. 

2. Manichaeism: Brutal Bloodshed and Mutation

Manichaeism was viewed with a much higher level of political hostility by the Tang court. It had previously been protected because it was the state religion of the Tang's vital military allies, the Uyghur Khaganate. When the Uyghurs fell to the Kirghiz in 840 CE, Wuzong immediately unleashed the state's full fury on the Manichaeans starting in 843 CE—two years before the general edict against Buddhism. 

• The Execution: The court's crackdown was highly violent. Rather than just ordering them to change clothes, the imperial government ordered the complete physical destruction of all Manichaean temples and publicly executed priests to terrorize their congregations into submission. 
• The Reaction: Manichaeism was structurally built to endure persecution. It was a highly adaptable religion that had spent centuries blending its vocabulary with Buddhism and Daoism. 
• The Fate: To survive, the surviving Manichaean refugees fled southwest to provinces like Fujian and Zhejiang. They explicitly hid their texts and went underground by disguising themselves as vegetarian Buddhist sects (wholesale syncretizing into Pure Land Buddhism). 

Because of this strategic shape-shifting, Manichaeism survived the 845 purge. It re-emerged centuries later in Chinese peasant rebellions (such as the White Lotus movements and the Ming rebellion) as a secret, revolutionary undercurrent long after Zoroastrianism had completely turned to dust. 

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Direct Strategic Comparison

Dimension	Zoroastrianism (火祆教)	Manichaeism (摩尼教 / 明教)
Primary Target Base	Mostly foreign Central Asian/Sogdian merchants.	Heavily tied to Uyghur politics and native converts.
Level of Violence Faced	Bureaucratic forced defrocking and tax reassignment.	Severe; public executions of high clergy and total temple burning.
Survival Strategy	Complied with state orders; assimilation into lay life.	Fled to southeast China; disguised themselves as vegetarian Buddhists.
Long-term Outcome	Totally vanished from Chinese history by the Song Dynasty.	Survived for centuries underground as a secret society archetype.