Qufu's Temple: Nine Courtyards, Five Hundred Steles and a First Sacrifice
The temple at Qufu was raised over Confucius' own house two years after his death, and for two thousand years every Chinese emperor who came north went into it.
Jining.
Jining lies in the southwestern corner of Shandong, where the hilly ground of central Shandong meets the Yellow and Huai plains, with the Grand Canal running through the prefecture and through the city itself. South of it the four lakes Nanyang, Zhaoyang, Dushan and Weishan form the largest group of freshwater lakes in northern China. It administers two districts, seven counties and two county-level cities, Qufu and Zoucheng, and counted 8,357,897 residents at the 2020 census. The prefecture is where Confucius was born and home; it holds his main temple and tomb in Qufu and the main temple of Mencius in Zoucheng. Its county of Liangshan is the principal setting of the novel Water Margin.
Jining
Kong Lin: A Road of Cypresses Into Ten Thousand Graves
North of Qufu's north gate a 1,266-metre avenue of cypress and pine leads to the forest cemetery of the Kong clan, where Confucius and a hundred thousand descendants lie.
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Kong Fu: From 1038 to Taiwan, the House of the Dukes of Yansheng
East of the Qufu temple stands the house of the senior line of Confucius' descendants, laid out front as an office and behind as a household under Confucian rank.
ReadMencius 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.
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Liangshan: A Hill of 197 Metres and a Marsh of a Thousand Heroes
The Jining county whose hill and wetland gave Water Margin its name, and where Lu Xun thought a real marsh had stood since the Song.
ReadPlaces
Temple of Confucius, Qufu
The largest and most renowned temple of Confucius in East Asia, and since 1994 one of the three parts of the Qufu World Heritage site.
Kong Lin, the Forest Cemetery
The clan cemetery north of Qufu where Confucius and more than 100,000 descendants lie, under more than ten thousand mature trees.
Kong Fu, the Mansion of the Duke
The residence of the senior line of Confucius' descendants, the Dukes of Yansheng, standing immediately east of the temple.
Mencius Temple, Zoucheng
The temple of Mencius at Zoucheng, where the second sage is sacrificed to; with the Meng mansion and cemetery it makes the Three Meng.
Liangshan Marsh and Mount Liang
The Jining county whose hill and marsh gave Water Margin its name, and whose wetland is all that remains of the water in the novel.
Photo credits and rights
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Jining: the railway station lit at night.David290 / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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Qufu: the Wanren Gongqiang gate of the old city wall.brett Vachon from Montreal, canada / CC BY 2.0 · CC BY 2.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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The Confucius cemetery: the stone animals on the spirit way.Rolfmueller / CC BY-SA 3.0 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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The Kong family mansion: the outer gate.xiquinhosilva / CC BY 2.0 · CC BY 2.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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Liangshan: the inscribed stele at the foot of the hill.kanegen from Tokyo, Japan / CC BY 2.0 · CC BY 2.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
