Yongle Palace (Yongle Gong)

Yongle Palace (Yongle Gong) sits at 78 Yongle North Street in Ruicheng County, in the far south-west of Yuncheng, Shanxi province, China. The Daoist complex was built in the Yuan dynasty to honour the immortal Lu Dongbin and was moved in the 1950s from its original site to avoid flooding from the Sanmenxia dam on the Yellow River. Its fame rests on the murals in its halls, above all the Sanqing Hall, where a wall painting of roughly 400 square metres shows a procession of deities and celestial officials heading toward the Three Pure Ones. The painting is counted among the masterpieces of Chinese wall art, noted for flowing lines, rich colour and lifelike faces. Other halls, including the Chunyang Hall, hold narrative murals about the life of Lu Dongbin, and the buildings along the central axis show the architecture of Yuan Daoist temples with large timber frames and sweeping roofs. Visitors typically spend two to three hours, with most of that time inside the halls studying the murals; a torch or good lighting on a phone helps, though flash photography is usually restricted to protect the paintings. The courtyards offer photo angles along the axis from the entrance gate, especially in the morning when the light is soft. Crowds are modest outside national holidays, and weekday mornings are the calmest. Admission is about CNY 60, with some sources listing CNY 45-60, and hours are generally 08:00-18:00. From Yuncheng, an intercity bus to Ruicheng takes 1 to 1.5 hours, followed by a ten-minute taxi, or a private car takes about 1.5 hours. Ruicheng also offers a chance to combine the visit with other Daoist and ancient sites in the county.