Wu Yifeng’s Tomb

Wu Yifeng’s Tomb

Wu Yifeng’s Tomb is a cultural tourism attraction.

Wu Yifeng was the founding figure of Tianzhu Mountain. He made immortal contributions to promoting and developing the mountain and was deeply beloved by the people of Qianshan. Every year during the Qingming Festival, leaders from various levels, teachers and students of Yezhai Middle School, Wu’s former friends, and local residents spontaneously come to his tomb to pay their respects.

Wu Yifeng’s Tomb has become part of Qianshan’s spiritual heritage. Beyond commemorating this pioneer of Tianzhu Mountain, it serves to inspire people through learning about Mr. Wu Yifeng and drawing strength from his humanistic spirit.

Wu Yifeng (1901–1989), from Liaocheng, Shandong Province, graduated from the Philosophy Department of Peking University in 1928. He once served as an editor at the Zhejiang Provincial Library, head instructor at Hangzhou Provincial High School, and principal of Xuancheng No.1 High School and Anqing No.1 High School in Anhui Province.

In 1933, while working as a secretary at the Anhui Provincial Department of Education, he first visited Tianzhu Mountain and formed an inseparable bond with it ever since. In 1942, due to a family marital crisis, Wu Yifeng wandered thousands of miles from Sichuan and came to live in seclusion at Tianzhu Mountain. He stayed in the Tianzhu Mountain House, which he had built in 1937 on the back hill behind Mazu Hermitage, and became close to Monk Miaogao. During the day, he would explore the peaks, and at night, discuss Buddhism and Zen. In 1943, Fan Yuansheng, the Anqing Commissioner, led the establishment of the 176th Division War Memorial Cemetery for soldiers who died in the Anti-Japanese War in Yezhai. To protect the cemetery and educate future generations, the “Jingzhong Private Middle School” was founded, taking its name from the meaning “to admire the loyal and heroic.” They earnestly invited Mr. Wu Yifeng to take charge of the school’s administration.

At the beginning of the school’s establishment, two first-year classes and one second-year class were enrolled, totaling 150 students. Upon learning of this, the Provincial Department of Education, citing lack of approval, did not recognize the students’ enrollment status and ordered the school to shut down.

Wu Yifeng actively managed the school while stabilizing the morale of teachers and students, and also negotiated with the provincial authorities. The head of the Provincial Department of Education, Wang Shaolun, was Wu Yifeng’s classmate. Impressed by his talent, Wang kept him in charge of daily departmental affairs. In May 1945, when Wang Shaolun went to Chongqing on official business, Wu Yifeng temporarily assumed the authority of the department head.

As a result, he had “Jingzhong” resubmit its application for establishment to the Provincial Department of Education and approved it himself. After the document was issued, Mr. Wu Yifeng immediately resigned from his official post, returned to Qianshan, and continued running the school.

To develop Tianzhu Mountain, he actively raised funds, successively building reception facilities on the mountain such as the Wangyue Pavilion and Yueyun Mountain House, and constructing over 2,000 stone steps from Liangyaoping to Baiyue Platform.

Wu Yifeng climbed the mountain for inspection hundreds of times and made a grand vow to compile a chronicle of Tianzhu Mountain. After 18 years of effort, he completed a draft of over 500,000 characters. Unexpectedly, at this time, Mr. Wu Yifeng was labeled a “rightist,” imprisoned, and not released until 1969. He was then sent to rural Yezhai for labor and was not fully exonerated until 1979. He then served as head of the Public Courses Teaching and Research Office at Anqing Normal School and as an associate professor of psychology. He also successively served as a deputy to the Fourth and Eighth Qianshan Municipal People’s Congresses and as a member of the Fourth and Fifth Anhui Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

However, his manuscript was confiscated during his imprisonment. After searching through boxes and drawers, he finally managed to recover part of the original text. Through more than 2,500 days and nights of sorting and revision, the Tianzhu Mountain Annals was finally officially published by the Anhui Education Publishing House in 1984.

Wu Yifeng was a man of great talent and left behind a substantial body of written work. In addition to the Tianzhu Mountain Annals, he also authored Li Zhuowu's Writings Examined, A History of the Relationships Among Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism During China’s Medieval Period, Praise for Mr. Ma Yifu’s Scholarship, Collection of Poetry by Ma Zhanweng, Treatise on Human Nature, Poetic Manuscripts from Yueyun Mountain House, and Collected Letters of the Tianzhu Elder, among others. According to incomplete statistics, Wu Yifeng wrote over a thousand regulated poems in his lifetime. In 2002, on the centenary of Mr. Wu’s birth, Xu Jida, president of the Tianzhu Mountain Tourism Association, organized the selection and publication of Selected Poems from Yueyun Mountain House, which includes 77 poems about Tianzhu Mountain.

Wu Yifeng loved mountains all his life and styled himself the “Tianzhu Elder” and the “Forget-the-Net Recluse.” On February 26, 1989, Mr. Wu passed away at the age of 88 in his cottage at the valley entrance in Yezhai.

In accordance with his last wishes, his body was cremated in a seated urn at Sanzu Temple and buried on the southern mountain in Chazhuang Village, Tianzhu Mountain Tea Farm. He devoted most of his life and energy to Tianzhu Mountain and after death returned to the embrace of the mountain. The nearby grave is that of his wife in Qianshan, Madam Yu Jurong.

Wu Yifeng (1901–1989), courtesy name Guanjun, also known as the “Forget-the-Net Recluse” and the “One-Peak Elder,” was originally from Dongchang Prefecture, Liaocheng, Shandong Province, and later settled in Yezhai, Qianshan, Anhui. In 1928, he studied in the Philosophy Department of Peking University. He held positions including editor at the Zhejiang Provincial Library, teacher at a provincial high school, secretary at the Anhui Provincial Department of Education, principal of Xuancheng High School and Anqing No.1 High School, associate professor at Chongqing University in Sichuan, principal of Yezhai Jingzhong Middle School in Qianshan, and in 1942, served as a member of the Tianzhu Mountain Development Committee. His works include Li Zhuowu's Writings Examined, Tianzhu Mountain Summary (mimeographed), Tianzhu Mountain Annals, ... More details on Wu Yifeng++