With the pirates suppressed, the monks remained in support of the local garrison and established the Southern Shaolin Monastery.
The Southern Shaolin Temple gained a reputation for being a revolutionary center and the abbot refused to become a part of the emperor's army or take orders from him.
In an effort to crush the growing rebellion, the Qing army attacked and burned the Southern Shaolin Monastery during middle of the 19th century.
Professor Barend J. ter Haar has suggested "that stories on the burning of a real or mythological Shaolin monastery were circulating in southern China towards the end of the eighteenth century, which were then taken up in different ways by martial arts specialists and by the Triads.
It is said that after the government destroyed the first temple Chee Seen, one of the Five Elders went on to build a second southern Shaolin Temple at Jiulian Shan (Nine Lotus Mountain) which was also later destroyed by the Qing government with the help of Pak Mei and Fung Dou Dak, two of Five Elders who defected from the Shaolin.