Jiàngxiàn

Jiangxian in southern Shanxi had a Confucian temple whose buildings carried the county's educational and ritual traditions through the Ming and Qing. The institution traced its foundation to 932, under the Later Tang, and was repaired repeatedly by later generations.

Its layout led northward through ceremonial gates and halls to the Dacheng Hall and the Minglun Hall. Shrines for distinguished officials and local worthies stood alongside the principal axis, together with other buildings devoted to learning and worship. The surviving Dacheng Hall is a Ming structure, three bays across and three deep, with a single-eaved hip-and-gable roof and closely spaced bracket sets beneath its eaves. The Minglun Hall belongs to the Qing period. These successive buildings give concrete form to the county's long cultivation of Confucian learning.