Former Site of Liaoyang Xiangping Academy

For over three centuries, the sound of student recitations has echoed from the same plot of land in Liaoyang, surviving wars, imperial collapses, and foreign occupations. This is the Former Site of Liaoyang Xiangping Academy, once celebrated as one of the Three Great Academies of Shengjing alongside Shenyang's Cuisheng Academy and Tieling's Yingang Academy.

Its journey began in 1723 when Magistrate Wang Han established a humble charity school on Yixue Street. In 1835, Magistrate Zhang Zhaochi repaired the decaying structures, renaming the institution after the ancient city of Xiangping. Yet the school struggled. Financial droughts closed its doors for decades until 1884, when Magistrate Zhang Yue donated his own salary to move the academy away from its cramped, flood-prone original site. His successor, Zhang Xifan, purchased a new plot in Gangjia Alley, and by 1890, Magistrate Xu Fuqing completed the construction. Scholars like Bai Yongzhen, who later tutored Zhang Xueliang, and reportedly the future anti-Japanese commander Bai Yihua, studied under these roofs. The main hall still bears a plaque inscribed with the three characters 'Public, Diligent, Resolute'.

The builders constructed a south-facing, three-entry courtyard using earth, wood, blue bricks, and traditional gray tiles. Forty-two rooms survived the centuries. The complex reportedly lost its front screen wall during the Manchukuo period, its decorated gate after local liberation, and its stone lions during the Cultural Revolution. Inside, the structured layout separated the lecture hall, headmaster's room, and dormitories. Two stone steles, the 'Record of Building Xiangping Academy' and the 'Regulations of Xiangping Academy,' still stand in the courtyard, their weathered inscriptions detailing the strict rules of student life.

Today, this quiet sanctuary sits preserved in the northwestern corner of the active Liaoyang Fourth Senior High School campus. Modern teenagers walk past the same herringbone-patterned brick floors where green moss spreads silently beneath the shade of spruce, ginkgo, and maple trees. In autumn, mountain ash berries ripen into bright red clusters above the old stone mounting blocks.

The academy remains a rare example of an ancient school operating inside a modern educational institution. The physical gates have changed. The pursuit of knowledge continues uninterrupted, binding the scholars of the Qing Dynasty to the students of today.