Píngliàng

Pingliang lies in the Jing River valley, on the road between the Guanzhong plain and the northwestern highlands. West of the city rises Mount Kongtong, a sacred mountain associated with the Daoist tradition that the Yellow Emperor sought instruction there from the sage Guangchengzi. Temples, halls and towers were built among its peaks over many centuries, making it a place of pilgrimage as well as a landmark on the western road.

In the Ming, members of the princely house of Han supported building on Kongtong. A prince enlarged its religious buildings in the fifteenth century, and later patrons helped restore halls dedicated to the Thunder Ancestor and the Three Officials. An inscription of 1615 records pilgrimage to the mountain. Under the Qing, the prefect invited the Daoist master Miao Qingyang to preside over religious life there in 1676, strengthening the Longmen tradition at Kongtong. The mountain's shrines joined the city to networks of worship reaching across the region.