Fazhu Gong

Fazhu Gong is none other than Zhang Shengjun, traditionally identified as Zhang Ziguang, a Song-dynasty native of Dehua County in central Fujian. He cultivated Daoist practice and attained spiritual mastery at Jinsha Hall in Minqing County. Throughout his life, he performed rituals to bring rain and end droughts, eradicate agricultural pests, and slay serpents and demons; his activities spanned numerous counties across central Fujian. After his death, he was enshrined as Fazhu Gong—the 'Lord of Ritual Authority'—in Yongtai and Dehua Counties. His cult flourished especially in Anxi, Yongchun, and Dehua Counties. When Anxi tea merchants travelled to Dadaocheng in Taipei to trade tea, they carried his incense ashes and sacred effigies with them. In the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty (1875–1908), they erected the Dadaocheng Fazhu Gong Temple, which became the spiritual anchor and protective deity of the Taipei tea trade. Though Fazhu Gong’s worship in Taiwan never achieved the same breadth as in his Fujian homeland, it carries profound nostalgia for the historic tea trade routes linking the two shores; annually, temples on both sides of the Taiwan Strait conduct reciprocal rites in his honour.