A unique temple where all gods live together

Pingyao City God Temple is a typical Chinese official Taoist temple and a national key cultural relic protection site. In Taoism, the City God Temple is the patron saint of the city, and is responsible for ensuring the peace of the people. It has very strict regulations, and the Pingyao City God Temple was built in the style of local government offices. The founding date of the City God Temple is unknown, but it was rebuilt in the 33rd year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (1554). The entire building consists of three groups of buildings: City God Temple, Kitchen God Temple and God of Wealth Temple. There are three courtyards along the central axis, with archways, mountain gates, stage, offering hall, City God Hall, sleeping palace, as well as the Six Ministry's Mansion and Land God Temple. In front of the front yard are the stage and the bell and drum tower, and on the east and west sides are corridors. The central courtyard is the Xiandian and Chenghuangdian. The east side hall houses the Liucao Mansion. At the south end of the Liucao Mansion, next to the bell tower, is the Zhong Kui Hall. There is a land temple in the west side hall, and a reincarnation hall is located at the southern end of the land temple, close to the drum tower. The offering hall is five bays wide, with a hip roof and a gabled roof, a hip-and-gable porch in front, and transparent walls on all four sides. The main hall, the City God Hall, is five bays wide, a seven-purlin front porch-style building with five-step double-lower brackets. A statue of the City God is enshrined in the main hall, with little devils and judges standing on both sides, and a picture of the City God on patrol is painted on the wall. The east side hall is the Liucao Mansion, where statues of the six judges, the Black and White Impermanence and other hell beings are sculpted; the west side hall is the Tudi Temple, where statues of 40 land gods from the 40 districts in Pingyao during the Ming and Qing dynasties are enshrined. The backyard is the sleeping palace, and on the east and west sides are the Kitchen God Temple and the God of Wealth Temple respectively. The sleeping palace is the bedroom where the City God rests. It is a building with a cave dwelling below and a pavilion above. The walls of the palace are painted with murals of "City God Reporting on His Duties" and poems by literati. The main deity in the lower cave is the City God, with the Judge of Life and Death and the Judge of Good and Evil on his left and right. The statues of the City God and his wife are enshrined in the upper pavilion. The main hall of the Kitchen God Temple is the Kitchen God Hall, where the Kitchen God and his wife are enshrined. The Temple of the God of Wealth is located on the west side of the Offering Hall, with two courtyards in front and back. It is a temple within a temple and consists of the mountain gate, the Temple of the God of Wealth, the Zhenwu Tower, the Offering Hall of the God of Wealth Temple, the stage of the God of Wealth Temple and the viewing tower. In the Temple of the God of Wealth are statues of Bigan, the civil god of wealth, and Zhao Gongming and Guan Yu, the military gods of wealth. The Kitchen God Hall is located on the east side of the City God Temple. It has two courtyards, the first courtyard is the temple area and the second courtyard is the Taoist temple. Pingyao City God Temple is extremely rich in historical and cultural content. It integrates traditional Confucianism, Taoism, and folk culture to form a unique scene of "all gods living in the same temple and receiving incense together". It is a well-preserved cultural relic and historical site with rich cultural connotations among the existing county-level City God Temple sites in the country, and is worth appreciating and savoring.