Zangshan and the Orphan of Zhao

Zangshan Shrine stands east of Zangshan village, in Changchi town, Yu County, Yangquan, in the mountains of eastern Shanxi. The county covers 2,439 square kilometres, with its government in Xiushui town, and the shrine is one of the six national key cultural relic protection units within it. It was announced as a provincial unit on 12 January 1996 and as a national one in May 2013, and in the heritage lists it falls under ancient buildings and historical commemorative structures. That heading is worth noting: it is the list's category for standing buildings of historical value, which is a statement about the fabric and not about the legend.

The story told of this mountain is the orphan of Zhao: a minister's family destroyed at court, one child smuggled away and hidden, and a name, Zangshan, the mountain that hides, taken from the hiding. It is a story, told in a play and in a history, and this article keeps it at that level. It explains the mountain's name as the place tells it; the shrine is where that telling is kept. What the story does not do is say who built the shrine, when, or for which patron. Those questions belong to the lists, and the lists are silent about the orphan.

Set the two side by side and the difference is plain. The record gives a place, a town, a village, a category and two dates: provincial on 12 January 1996, national in May 2013, among the six national units of Yu County. It gives nothing about the Zhao clan, the hiding or the child. The story gives all of that and no dates at all. One more entry in the county's lists is worth separating: Yu County's provincial list carries a Li Village Zangshan Shrine, a similar name for a different site, so the name alone does not identify a place here. The shrine is a real building; the orphan is a story it keeps.