Before Chengdu was a Chinese provincial capital it was the centre of Shu, a kingdom of the Sichuan basin with its own rulers, its own bronze-casting tradition and its own myths. The Wangcong Shrine, in the district of Pidu on the north-western edge of the modern city, is a memorial to two of those legendary kings, Duyu and Bieling, and it is one of the few places where that older layer of Sichuan's history is still actively commemorated.
The two kings and the cuckoo
Duyu, the king of Shu in the legend, is said to have taught the people agriculture and to have abdicated in favour of his minister Bieling, who then dealt with the flooding of the plain by cutting channels to drain the marshes - the work that later made the Chengdu plain one of the most productive farming regions in China. In the best-known version of the story, Duyu withdrew after his abdication and, when he died, turned into a cuckoo; the bird's call, heard as the fields are being ploughed, became in Chinese poetry a symbol of the ruler's longing for his people, and the phrase has been used by poets for two thousand years. The association is the reason the site matters more than its size suggests.
The shrine today
The complex is a walled garden with halls containing images of the two kings, ancestral tablets, stone steles and inscriptions, set among old trees, a pond and bamboo. It is quiet and local, visited by families and by people who come for the shade, and it functions as a park as much as a memorial. The district around it is also where Pixian bean paste is made, the fermented chilli-and-bean base that gives Sichuan cooking much of its depth, so a visit can be combined with the workshops and shops that sell it.
Practical notes
The shrine is in Pidu, about forty minutes from central Chengdu by metro and a short taxi ride, or by road. It charges a small admission, is open daily during daylight hours, and needs about an hour. There is almost no English signage, so read up on the legend beforehand or bring a guide; the story makes the halls legible, and without it the site looks like an ordinary park temple. It combines well with the Pixian bean paste workshops and with the Dujiangyan irrigation system, whose engineering tradition picks up exactly where Bieling's legendary flood control leaves off.
