Cheng Huang

Also Known As: Chinese 城隍, also Chenghuang, Chenghuangshen and Ch’eng Huang; the City God, literally the god of the wall and the moat
Region/Culture: East Asia
Mythos: Chinese Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: He guards a walled town and everyone inside it, and he holds authority over the souls of that town’s dead.
Role in Mythos: He is the spirit magistrate of a single city, the unseen twin of the human official who governs it, ranked above the earth gods of its neighbourhoods.
Relation to Humans: Townspeople ask him for rain, for health and for justice, and officials once spent a night in his temple before taking up a post. He can be held to account in return, and a City God who failed to send rain could have his statue set out in the sun or whipped.

Incense smoke hangs under the roof beams in a slow grey layer, and through it a painted face looks down from a high seat. The hall is laid out like a courtroom. There is a bench, there are attendants at either hand, and there is a judge who never blinks. Outside, the street sellers are shouting. In here a woman kneels on the worn stone, lights three sticks, and tells the magistrate of the dead that her son has a fever.

His name is a description of a building site. Cheng is a city wall. Huang is the moat dug in front of it. The god of the wall and the moat began as exactly that, a power thought to keep the rammed earth standing and the ditch full, and with them the lives packed behind both. A town important enough to be walled was a town important enough to have one.

How old he is depends on which record is trusted. A county magistrate writing in 1832, looking back through the books, put the first known temple at Wuhu, on the Yangtze, in the year 239, when the state of Wu held the river. The same account has another raised in Yingzhou under the Northern Qi. By the Tang dynasty the temples were common across the south and officials were composing prayers to them. Under the Song the court took notice. Between 1228 and 1233 the throne handed out name plaques to City God temples, and in the years just after it began granting the gods noble titles, so that one town’s guardian might be a marquis.

Somewhere along that road the wall and moat acquired a face. Many towns came to say that their City God was a particular dead man, usually an official who had served the place well and had been kept on in the job. Shanghai is the clearest case, and it has three. The oldest is Huo Guang, a chancellor of the Han who died in 68 BC and was the county’s guardian under the Yuan. The second is Qin Yubo, a Shanghai man born in 1295 who twice refused a summons to the new Ming court, finally went, served as chief examiner, and was named City God of Shanghai by the emperor after his death in 1373. The third is Chen Huacheng, a Qing general who swore to hold the mouth of the Yangtze against the British in 1842 and died doing it. So the post is an office and not a person. It can be filled, and the god of one city is not the god of the next.

The great turn in his story is a piece of paperwork. In 1369 the first Ming emperor, a man with a taste for order, gave every City God in the empire a rank. The guardian of the capital at Nanjing became a prince, five other great cities received titles nearly as grand, and the rest were graded downward in step with the size of the town. A year later he changed his mind. Every noble title was struck off. Each was to be known only as the City God of his own prefecture or county, his temple was to be built to match the local government office, and his statue was to come down and a wooden tablet go up in its place. The statues came back in time. The idea behind the order did not go away: every earthly magistrate had a counterpart in the spirit world, sitting in a matching hall, hearing the cases that the living court could not reach.

On an ordinary evening that is what he is doing. The gates are shut, the lamps burn low and oily, and the dead of the town stand before the bench to be heard. A newly appointed official, arriving to govern a place he had never seen, would pass the night in that same hall before he touched a single file, asking the old magistrate for guidance and, by plain implication, promising to behave.

Three times a year he went out. In the third, seventh and tenth lunar months his image was carried through the streets in procession to look over his district and see to the unquiet dead, with gongs, drums and the flat crack of firecrackers going ahead of him. His birthday was louder still, a temple fair with opera on a stage facing his door, food stalls and fireworks.

He has no body of his own in the old texts. A wall and a ditch do not need one. What the worshipper sees is borrowed from the yamen: a seated man in the long robes and winged hat of an official, dark-faced or red-faced or pale according to the town, larger than life and flanked by clerks and runners in painted wood.

His powers are those of his office. He keeps the town safe from attack, flood and plague. He can bring rain. He hears oaths, and a man accused of a crime might be taken before him to swear his innocence, on the understanding that the god would deal with a liar. He keeps the register of the local dead and has charge of their souls. The earth gods of the lanes and villages answer to him.

His limits are the limits of any official. His writ stops at the edge of his district. He sits inside a chain of command and answers to powers above him. And he can be disciplined from below. When a drought dragged on and prayers at his temple had done nothing, the human magistrate could have the statue hauled out of the cool hall and left under the hard sun to feel what the fields were feeling. In some cases the image was flogged. A god who would not do his job was treated like a clerk who would not do his.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Cheng Huang?

Cheng Huang is the City God of Chinese mythology, the guardian spirit of a walled town and its people. Each city has its own Cheng Huang, who acts as a spirit magistrate matching the human official who governs the place. He also has authority over the souls of the town’s dead.

What does the name Cheng Huang mean?

Cheng Huang means wall and moat. Cheng is the Chinese word for a city wall and huang is the moat in front of it. The god began as the protector of a town’s defences and grew into the protector of the whole town.

Is Cheng Huang one god or many?

Cheng Huang is a title held by many different gods, one for each city. Towns often identified their City God with a respected dead official. Shanghai has three: the Han chancellor Huo Guang, the Ming examiner Qin Yubo and the Qing general Chen Huacheng.

What did the Ming emperor do to the City Gods?

In 1369 the first Ming emperor gave every City God a noble rank, with the god of Nanjing made a prince. In 1370 he removed all the titles, ordered the temples to match local government offices and replaced the statues with wooden tablets. The reform fixed the idea of Cheng Huang as the spirit twin of the local magistrate.

Could a City God be punished?

Yes, a Cheng Huang could be punished for failing in his duty. If he did not send rain after proper prayers, officials could set his statue out in the burning sun or have it whipped. He was treated as an official who could be held to account.