Tian Ning Temple in Yangzhou, Jiangsu | The palace where Emperor Qianlong stayed during his trip to the south of the Yangtze River

Tian Ning Temple is one of the 'Eight Ancient Temples' of Yangzhou during the Qing Dynasty. The starting point of Slender West Lake: Tian Ning Temple. During the Kangxi and Qianlong periods of the Qing Dynasty, in order to welcome the arrival of Qianlong, the salt merchants of Yangzhou built a palace in the West Garden of Tian Ning Temple. 20 meters down from the entrance of Tian Ning Temple, there is a royal horse head. The word 'horse' in 'Royal Horse Head Pier' is missing the 'stone' character, which is generally considered a typo, but because there can be no obstacles under the emperor's feet, the 'stone' character is removed from the word 'pier'. It is said that during his southern tour, Kangxi ordered Cao Yin to compile the 'Complete Tang Poems' and 'Pei Wen Yun Fu', which were engraved in Tian Ning Temple. Legend has it that it was originally built during the Eastern Jin Dynasty and was originally the villa of Xie An, a senior official of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. This is the 'Xie' in 'The swallows in front of the old Wang Xie's hall'. After Xie An's death, his son Xie Yan 'requested to convert the house into a temple', which means he asked the emperor to allow Xie An's villa to be converted into a temple. Tian Ning Temple was also one of the main activity places of the Yangzhou Eight Eccentrics during the Qing Dynasty. Nowadays, the statues of the Eight Eccentrics stand on the lawn in Tian Ning Temple, lifelike, as if they have traveled through a hundred years. In the following hundred years, Tian Ning Temple has experienced wars and was once occupied and destroyed. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was properly repaired and protected, and initially used as the Yangzhou City Museum. After the new site of the Yangzhou Museum was put into use, it was used as the China Yangzhou Buddhist Culture Museum. It houses a set of 'Complete Library in Four Sections', with a total of more than 32,000 volumes, about 800 million characters. It is open to the public for free. (Stored in the Wen Hui Pavilion near Tian Ning Temple) Open every day from 9:00 to 17:00.