Mount Liang (Chinese: 梁山; pinyin: Liáng Shān) is a mountain in Liangshan County, Shandong province, China which rises to 197. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use Liangshan County ( is a county in Shandong province China. Within its administrative territory is the famous Mount Liang (same name as the ( is a coastal province of eastern People's Republic of China. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National 9 m above sea level. It is well known as the stronghold of the 108 legendary Song Dynasty heroes of the classic Chinese novel Water Margin. The Song Dynasty ( Wade-Giles: Sung Ch'ao was a ruling dynasty in China between 960&ndash1279 CE it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Water Margin ( (also Outlaws of the Marsh, All Men Are Brothers or The Marshes of Mount Liang) is one of the Four Great Classical Novels The modern Liangshan County is located a few kilometres to the north, and 80km west of the Beijing-Shanghai railway line. Shanghai ( 上[[wikt 海|海]] is the largest city in China in terms of population and one of the largest urban areas in the world with over 20 million

The original Mount Liang was named after the son of Emperor Wen, the King of Liang, who was buried on the mountain. Emperor Wen of Han (202 BC&ndash157 BC was an emperor of the Han Dynasty in China. The area was from prehistoric times surrounded by the largest marshland in north China, called the Daye Marsh and later the Liangshan Marsh. During the Song Dynasty, the Yellow River passed through the area. The Yellow River or Huang He / Hwang Ho ( Hatan Gol Queen river) is the second-longest river in China (after the Yangtze River) and the Mount Liang was located at the extreme north of what became known as the "eight hundred li moorage of Mount Liang". Because the area was largely a wasteland on the frontiers of several administrative units, government control was minimal. It is known that bandit chiefs were active in the area during the Northern Song, although Song Jiang - one of the chief protagonists of the Water Margin - was not associated with the area. Song Jiang (宋江 was the leader of a bandit group in the 12th century, during the Song Dynasty. Some of the bandits on Mount Liangshan preyed selectively upon the rich and became known as "righteous bandits" (yi fei 義匪). Legends about the heroes of Mount Liangshan, which provided the basis for the Water Margin, probably formed from this historical context. Banditry continued on Mount Liang until the mid-seventeenth century, when the Qing Dynasty government established a military garrison at what is now the city of Liangshan. Not to be confused with Qin Dynasty, the first dynasty of Imperial China

Water Margin describes Mount Liangshan in majestic terms, imagining its peak to be a plateau ringed by high mountains and protected by six passes and eight fortresses. The Yuan Dynasty play Black Hurricane Presents Twin Victories (黑旋風雙獻功) envisages Mount Liangshan as having: "seventy-two deep rivers, garrisoned with hundreds of warships. The Yuan Dynasty ( Pinyin: Yuáncháo Dai Ön Ulus (Дай Юан Улс was a ruling Dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai In thirty-six feasting towers are gathered food for a million soldiers and their mounts. "

When the Yellow River shifted course 1289, the marshes of Liangshan shrunk considerably. During the Ming Dynasty it had been reduced to five smaller marshlands. The Ming Dynasty ( or Empire of the Great Ming ( was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol -led After the Yellow River shifted back to its northern course in 1853, the marshes were gradually filled in by sediments carried downstream by the river and human land reclamation. Land reclamation is either of two distinct practices One involves creating new land from sea- or riverbeds the other refers to restoring an area to a more natural state (such as after Today the relatively small Dongping Lake is what remains of the great marshes.

Considerable effort has been made in recent years to develop Liangshan as a destination for domestic tourists. A number of buildings have been erected to match descriptions given in Water Margin. The mountain now has a somewhat theme park feel about it.

See also

• Empress Dowager Wenming tomb