Kinmen’s Zhuzi Shrine

 Address:Geographical location : No.35, Zhupu N. Rd., Jincheng Township, Kinmen County Longitude : 118.317374333596, Latitude : 24.4344461084854
 Subject:AssetClassification : Historic Monument, AssetsLevel : National Historic Monument, Asset Type : Ancient Academy

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【Introduction】

Kinmen’s Zhuzi Shrine is located in Wujiang Academy. Zhuzi was a famous rationalist in Confucian philosophy from Southern Song Dynasty. Whenserving as Chief of Staff for Tongan County of Fujian, he founded the earliest Yennan Academy in Kinmen where students were able to receive education. To express their gratitude for Zhuzi, the town people enshrined and worshipped him in Wujiang Academy. There were four academies in Kinmen, namely Yennan, Wuzhou, Jinshan, and Wujiang. Wujiang Academy is the only remaining one today. The academy building was originally used as county government offices. In 1780 (the 45th year of Emperor Qianlong), it was renovated as Wujiang Academy, where statues of Zhuzi and other sages were enshrined in the following year. The Wujiang Academy is a four-row house compound. Apart from the courtyard and the screen wall across the gate, from front to back is the main gate, the gate of rites, the lecture hall, and the Zhuzhi Shrine. There are also eight classrooms on the east and west wings on the left and right sides. After Kinmen was structured into a county, Wujiang Academy became an elementary school and was renamed “County Wujiang Elementary School” in 1926. The existing Zhuzi Shrine is a three-bay architecture with a double eave and an East Asian hip-and-gable roof (Xieshan roof). A Diedou (piling-up wood bracket blocks) timber-frame structure is employed for the interior. Under the eaves that extend outwards on all sides is a corridor without columns to support it. The platform that stretches in front of the shrine was used for worshipping ceremonies in the past.

 

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