San Chung Temple Introduction
The San Chong Temple, also known as the Temple of the Three Loyal Ones, is located on Changan Street in Shuangxi Village, Shuangxi District, New Taipei City. It is a temple dedicated to three loyal officials from the late Southern Song Dynasty: Wen Tianxiang, Lu Xiufu, and Zhang Shijie. In the 46th year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1781), Lian Yuanqiao, a person from Jiangdu Township in Changtai County, Fujian Province, led a group to Taiwan by crossing the sea. At that time, he brought with him a statue of Wen Tianxiang. After traversing mountains and ridges to reach Shuangxi, they found the area to be a wilderness, not yet cultivated but beautifully scenic, and decided to settle here, engaging in land development and building a thatched hut for worship. Although the settlers were not fleeing from war, their Han Chinese spirit of resisting the Qing to restore the Ming was still strong, and being far from home, they inevitably felt a sense of emptiness, thus they entrusted their spiritual support to the deities for peace and stability. Consequently, the number of worshippers of Wen Tianxiang's statue grew. Lian Yuanqiao, having come to Taiwan from the mainland, then suggested to carve statues of Lu Xiufu and Zhang Shijie to be enshrined with Wen Tianxiang, collectively known as the Three Loyal Ones, and raised funds to build a temple, which was completed in the 7th year of the Tongzhi era. In 1994, the original temple was demolished and rebuilt to accommodate the widening of Datong Road as part of urban planning. Historically, the San Chong Temple has been a center of faith for the people of Shuangxi District, with a flourishing incense offering. In addition to the Three Loyal Ones as the main deities, the temple also enshrines Three Generations of Ancestors, the Heavenly Mother, Guansheng Dijun, Guanzhang Shengwang, Prince Yanping, Shakyamuni, and Guanyin among others.
