San Chung Temple Introduction
The San Chung Temple, also known as the San Gong Temple, is located on Changan Street in the Shuangxi District of New Taipei City. This temple honors the statues of three loyal ministers 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 AD), Lien Yuanqiao, a native of Jiangdu Township in Changtai County, Fujian Province, led a group across the sea to Taiwan. He brought with him a statue of Wen Tianxiang and, after traversing mountains and ridges to reach Shuangxi, found it to be a wild and undeveloped area, yet scenic and picturesque. Consequently, he decided to settle there, engage in land reclamation, and built a thatched hut for worship. Although the migrants were not fleeing from war, their spirit of resisting the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty remained strong, and having left their hometowns for a long sea journey, they inevitably felt a sense of emptiness. They turned to spirituality, seeking peace and comfort through divine protection, leading to an increase in worshippers of the Wen Tianxiang statue. Lien Yuanqiao, having arrived from the mainland, gathered support to create statues of Lu Xiufu and Zhang Shijie to be worshipped alongside Wen Tianxiang, thus collectively referred to as the Three Loyal Lords. They raised funds to build a temple, which was completed in the seventh year of the Tongzhi reign. In 1994, to accommodate urban planning and the widening of Datong Road, the original temple was demolished and rebuilt. Historically, the San Chung Temple has served as a religious center for the people of the Shuangxi District, with a thriving atmosphere of worship. In addition to the Three Loyal Lords, the temple also houses statues of the Three Generations of Patriarchs, the Heavenly Mother, Guandi, the Holy King of Ganzhang, Yanping Junwang, Shakyamuni, and Guanyin Buddha.
