Qiandeng Ancient Town

Gu Yanwu, a leading thinker of the late Ming and early Qing, was born here, and visitors find his shrine, study, inkstone and garden tomb.

Founded in 503, Yanfu Temple is crowned by the seven-story Qinfeng Pagoda, a Northern Song square tower of brick with wooden eaves, graceful enough to be nicknamed the Beauty Pagoda.

Built by the Huizhou merchant Yu family some three centuries ago, this vast pawnshop runs five courtyards deep behind high walls to guard against thieves.

Late-Yuan musician Gu Jian is credited with creating the Kunshan tune here, the root of Kunqu, the six-century-old ancestor of Chinese opera forms.

Part of Qiandeng Ancient Town's history: Flourishing of Yuan Drama (Zaju). Yuan zaju playwright from Pingyang who served as a clerk in Hangzhou, author of The Disembodied Soul of Qiannu and one of the four masters of Yuan drama

Part of Qiandeng Ancient Town's history: Flourishing of Yuan Drama (Zaju). Yuan playwright from Dadu credited with more than sixty zaju dramas, among them Injustice to Dou E, and listed first among the early Yuan dramatists

Part of Qiandeng Ancient Town's history: Flourishing of Yuan Drama (Zaju). Yuan playwright and lyricist raised by Yuan Haowen after the fall of the Jin capital, author of the dramas Rain on the Paulownia Tree and Over the Wall

Part of Qiandeng Ancient Town's history: Flourishing of Yuan Drama (Zaju). Yuan playwright and song-lyric writer from Dadu, author of the drama Autumn in the Han Palace and the short song Autumn Thoughts

Part of Qiandeng Ancient Town's history: Flourishing of Yuan Drama (Zaju). Yuan playwright from Dadu whose five-part zaju The Story of the Western Wing retells the romance of Cui Yingying and Student Zhang

Flourishing of Yuan Drama (Zaju)

Yuan qu was the period's flourishing dramatic art, encompassing sanqu songs and zaju drama and later distinguished as a northern tradition from southern forms.

In the late Yuan and early Ming, Qiandeng native Gu Jian helped advance the circulation of Kunshan tune, an important stage in Kunqu's development.

In 1613, Gu Yanwu was born in Qiandeng, Kunshan, and became an important scholar at the Ming–Qing transition.