Zhongshan Academy

History

A page on the website of the Wuxiang Mountain Scenic Area, in its section on historic figures, states that in the fourth year of the Jiajing era Wang Congshan built Zhongshan Academy on Wangjing Street in the county seat, and that in the third year of the Wanli era, after Qi Tai and other victims of the Jingnan purge had been rehabilitated, the academy was renamed Biaozhong Shrine. This is the scenic area's own account and is reproduced as such.

A place-name heritage notice supplied by the Civil Affairs Bureau of Lishui District records that Wangjing Street "once gathered temples, ancestral halls and academies" and states that "in the fourth year of Jiajing (1525) the Lishui magistrate Wang Congshan built Zhongshan Academy on Wangjing Street". On the point that the academy was built in 1525 this official place-name material agrees with the scenic area's account.

Comparison with the gazetteer

The Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, in the annals of juan 1, records two entries for the fourth and the twentieth years of Jiajing:

四年乙酉，知县王从善请祀齐泰于溧水，祠曰「表忠」。申免抛荒粮米。

二十年辛丑，知县谢廷置中山书院义田。

In the fourth year of Jiajing (1525) the magistrate Wang Congshan petitioned that Qi Tai be worshipped in Lishui and named the shrine "Biaozhong"; in the twentieth year (1541) the magistrate Xie Ting granted land to Zhongshan Academy.

On this evidence the gazetteer records what was founded in 1525 as a shrine named Biaozhong, while the name Zhongshan Academy appears by 1541 at the latest, land being granted to it that year. The biography of Wang Congshan in juan 6 of the same work records that he was the first to petition for worship at a shrine of loyalty and chastity, offering sacrifice to the Duke of Qi of posthumous name Jiemin, which corresponds to the petition for Qi Tai in the annals of the same year, though the shrine is named "Zhongjie" in one place and "Biaozhong" in the other.

The scenic area's sequence of a academy built in 1525 and renamed Biaozhong Shrine in 1575 is therefore at odds with the gazetteer's order of a Biaozhong shrine of 1525 and an academy already existing in 1541. The two accounts are set out side by side, and neither is chosen over the other.

Place name and remains

The fifth batch of place-name cultural heritage published for comment by the Civil Affairs Bureau of Lishui District on 3 June 2026 lists "Zhongshan Academy" under Yongyang Subdistrict, showing that the name is still in use. This shows only that the place name survives, not that the Ming building does. The bureau's place-name material of 2024 further records that the Zhuangyuan Archway was "rebuilt in front of Zhongshan Academy on the east side of Qifeng Road"; a place bearing the name Zhongshan Academy now stands on the east side of Qifeng Road, and its relation to the Ming academy is not recorded in the sources used.

According to a report of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism on the fourth national survey of cultural relics, in December 2024 surveyors of Lishui District recorded and measured a stele inscribed "record of fields and houses granted by the office to Zhongshan Academy"; the report describes it as a Ming stele connected with the Jingnan campaign and says it now stands in a pavilion in Zhuangyuanfang Park, Lishui. The stele is a newly recorded lead of the survey and is not yet graded; its text is not given in the report and is not supplied here.

Points of doubt

• Two accounts of the founding and the change of name come from different sources and do not agree in sequence: the scenic area website and the place-name material have an academy built in 1525, the gazetteer a Biaozhong shrine of 1525 and academy land in 1541. They are set out side by side pending reference to the gazetteer's sections on schools and institutions and to heritage records.
• The gazetteer names the shrine "Biaozhong" in the annals and "Zhongjie" in the biography; both are reproduced as they stand.
• The layout, scale, period of existence and ritual arrangements of the academy, and the details of worship after it became a shrine, are largely not recorded in the sources used here.
• That the place name Zhongshan Academy survives is a different matter from whether the Ming building survives, and the two are not conflated here.
• Within the parts read of the Guangxu Lishui County Gazetteer, juan 20 has no entry for Zhongshan Academy or the Biaozhong Shrine; the sections on schools and institutions of that gazetteer have not been read here, and its treatment of the academy remains to be supplied. Searches of academic and full-text classical sources yielded no further evidence.