Liangtushan

Liangtushan

The 1915 edition of the Revised Mengcheng County Annals records: “Tushan is located ten li to the north of the county, five zhang high, and one li and sixty paces in circumference. It contains more earth than stone, hence the name Tushan.”

According to legend, however, the mountain was originally called Liangshan. Though not large, the mountain had high-quality stone suitable for construction beams. Moreover, the stones were exposed on the surface, and there wasn’t much earth on the mountain. Later, why did the amount of earth on the mountain increase?

This has to do with He Weijing, known as the “Gold-Headed Censor.”

One year, when Beijing was undergoing large-scale palace construction, it planned to requisition stone from Liangtushan.

He Weijing thought to himself: quarrying, extracting, carving, and transporting the stone over a thousand li would be fraught with immense difficulties. How could the people back home bear such a heavy burden? So he quickly sent someone back to Mengcheng to explain the pros and cons and urged them to quickly bring earth to cover the mountain, burying all the stones under the yellow soil. Later, he told the Ministry of Works that Liangshan in Mengcheng was merely a small earthen mound, with no fine stone whatsoever. When the Ministry of Works sent people to inspect, they found this to be true, and thus no longer sought to requisition stone from Liangshan.

The local people were thus spared the hardship of arduous forced labor. From then on, Liangshan came to be known as Tushan, and some also called it Liangtushan.