Zoucheng is one of the two county-level cities administered by Jining, and it holds its own Meng temple, its own Meng mansion and its own Meng cemetery. The three are called the Three Meng, a deliberate answer to the Three Kong at Qufu. The cult here is of the successor rather than the founder, and the town keeps him at a distance: the shrine is a hall, not a house. A stone arch of four pillars and three gates carries on its east side a stele of 1581 recording the Temple of Mencius, Duke of Zouguo, which shows the arch stood before that year. Its stone pillars were damaged during the Cultural Revolution, and someone cut a line of Mao's poetry into them: four seas churning clouds and waters, five continents shaken by wind and thunder. The line is still there.
From the journal
Mencius at Zoucheng: The Second Sage, Kept in His Own City
The Meng temple at Zoucheng keeps the successor's cult in its own town, with a hall rebuilt in 1673, a well kerbed in 1831, and stone pillars still carrying a line of Mao's poetry.
In the same city · Jining ↗A Deliberate Echo of Qufu
Seventeen Metres of Green Tile, and a Well of 1831
The building that carries the temple is the Hall of the Second Sage: seven bays wide, roofed in green glazed tiles, a double-eaved hip-and-gable palace building, 17 metres high, 20.48 metres deep and 27.7 metres across, rebuilt in 1673. A plaque above the centre door is in the Qianlong Emperor's hand, and under the caisson of the ceiling hangs a golden plaque in the Yongzheng Emperor's hand, telling the reader to hold to what came first and wait for what comes next. At the centre stands Mencius in ceremonial robe and crown, recast in 1986, and in the shrine to the east is his disciple Lezhengzi. In 1968 the shrines, the images, the plaques and the ritual vessels were all destroyed, and the hall was restored in 1985. On the terrace in front of it stands the Tianzhen Well, whose stone kerb was built in 1831.
Two Galleries, and a List of Twenty-Seven Repairs
East and west of the hall run two galleries of the Qing dynasty, seven bays each and 7.8 metres high, where early Confucian writers are honoured from one generation to the next, Han Yu among them. Mencius' wife, Lady Tian, is sacrificed to in a hall of her own. The cult has been interrupted repeatedly: twenty-seven dated repairs and rebuildings are recorded between 1037 and 1873, the halls were damaged again during the Cultural Revolution, and restoration work began in 1980. Set against that list the Kangxi rebuilding of 1673 looks recent, and the temple's present shape is a Qing shape rather than a Song one, even though the Song is what gave Mencius his standing.