Water Margin: From Longhu to Liangshan

The novel begins at Longhu Mountain in Jiangxi. In the third year of the Jiayou era an envoy, Marshal Hong, is shown a locked hall with a plaque reading "Hall of Demon-Suppression", where the first Celestial Master sealed the demon kings. Those spirits are the ones that return as the 108 outlaws of Liangshan. The mountain is real: one of the birthplaces of Daoism, in Guixi, listed as World Heritage in 2010 as part of China Danxia.

Location precision: The novel names the mountain and its Shangqing Palace; the sealed hall is a story invention, so the pin marks the mountain.

Lu Zhishen is sent to the Manjusri Cloister on Mount Wutai, where Abbot Zhizhen presides. He lasts four or five months before restlessness wins, and a drunken return wrecks a pavilion and a guardian statue. Mount Wutai itself is one of the Buddhist sacred mountains of Shanxi and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2009.

Location precision: The novel names the mountain and a Manjusri cloister but no real monastery; the pin marks Mount Wutai.

Visitor guidance: Mount Wutai is a pilgrimage mountain with many monasteries.

In the capital, Lu Zhishen asks the way to Daxiangguo Temple. There he is given the post of managing a big vegetable garden outside the Suanzao Gate, and a notice announces that the monk Lu Zhishen is in charge. The temple is real: it stands in central Kaifeng and rose to the height of its status as a royal temple under the Song. The garden belongs to the story.

Visitor guidance: The temple is open to visitors in the centre of Kaifeng.

In the novel, Chai Jin tells Lin Chong of a marsh in Shandong, eight hundred li around, held by Wang Lun, the White-Robed Scholar. Outside the book, the real Liangshan Marsh formed after a Yellow River breach in 944 and had partly silted into farmland by the 1190s. The historical Song Jiang appears in the Song History in 1121 raiding in Huainan, Jingdong and Hebei before surrendering in Haizhou, but not at Liangshan.

Location precision: The marsh no longer exists; Mount Liang, a 197.9 m hill, is the traditional identification and is promoted as the heroes' stronghold. Scenic-area buildings there are later, tourist-oriented creations.

Wu Song reaches Yanggu county and finds a tavern flag reading "three bowls and you cannot cross the ridge". The keeper warns that a white-browed tiger on the ridge has killed dozens. Wu Song beats it with fists and feet in less than a meal. A scenic area now holds a hill-top temple and monuments to the story.

Location precision: The novel puts the ridge in Yanggu county; the monuments at Jingyang Ridge are a modern local tradition marking the tiger site, not an identified historical spot.

Visitor guidance: The scenic area lies a few kilometres northwest of Zhangqiu town in Yanggu county.

In Jiangzhou, a drunken Song Jiang sees a tavern sign reading Xunyang River and writes a poem, ending with a boast that he would outdo the rebel Huang Chao. He signs it "Song Jiang of Yuncheng". Huang Wenbing reads it as treason. The tower today stands on the Yangtze at Jiujiang, Jiangxi, and was rebuilt by the city in 1989.

Location precision: The tower in the novel is the story's; the present 21 m tower is a 1989 reconstruction named after it.

Visitor guidance: The rebuilt tower stands on the Yangtze waterfront in Jiujiang.

Near the end of the campaign, Song Jiang camps at Liuhe Pagoda in Hangzhou while officers rest in Liuhe Temple. At night Lu Zhishen hears thunder on the river and takes it for war drums; it is the tide. He remembers his master's verse about the tide, decides it is his time, and dies there, buried behind the pagoda hill. The octagonal pagoda is 59.89 m tall and was fully rebuilt by 1165.

Visitor guidance: The pagoda faces the river in southern Hangzhou.