Zhengding Ancient City

Founded in the Sui and restored under Song Taizu, Longxing Temple holds the Moni Hall, a Song revolving sutra cabinet and a seated Guanyin often called the Goddess of Beauty of the East.

Kaiyuan Temple preserves a Tang bell tower and the square Xumi Pagoda, plus one of China's largest stone bixi tortoises, a Five Dynasties carving weighing about a hundred tonnes.

Master Yixuan founded the Linji school of Chan here in the Tang, and its Jin-dynasty octagonal brick pagoda is revered by Japan's Rinzai followers as their ancestral site.

Zhengding's restored southern gate tower and Ming brick walls recall an old saying about three hidden hills, nine dry bridges, nine towers, four pagodas and eight great temples.

Part of Zhengding Ancient City's history: Huichang Secularization of Buddhism. Tang chief minister and son of Li Jifu who directed the wars against the Uighurs and the Zelu rebels under Wuzong and died in exile on Hainan

Part of Zhengding Ancient City's history: Huichang Secularization of Buddhism. Tang emperor Wuzong of the Huichang reign, who with chief minister Li Deyu broke the Uyghur remnants and the Zelu rebels and in 845 ordered the mass closure of Buddhist monasteries

Part of Zhengding Ancient City's history: Huichang Secularization of Buddhism. Late Tang Daoist master heavily favored by Emperor Wuzong who actively instigated the Huichang Buddhist persecution.

Part of Zhengding Ancient City's history: Huichang Secularization of Buddhism. Japanese Tendai pilgrim monk whose travel diary Nitto Guho Junrei Gyoki recorded Tang society and the Huichang persecution.

Huichang Secularization of Buddhism

State secularization of 40,000 temples and 260,000 monastics to restore imperial fiscal solvency.

In 854, Yixuan presided at Zhengding's Linji Temple and taught Linji Zen, making the temple a foundational site of the school.

In 969, Emperor Taizu ordered a new Great Compassion image and pavilion; construction at Zhengding's Longxing Temple ran from 971 to 975.