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Minxiong Ghost Mansion

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Minxiong haunted house, otherwise known as the Liu Mansion is located In the Taiwanese countryside and the old baroque mansion left abandoned and decayed by weather and time. And after being abandoned by the owners, rumours of ghosts started to be told and the mansion is one of the well known haunted places around.

On the serene countryside of Taiwan, amidst rice fields and forest, a mansion is left abandoned between the Banyan trees that have soon claimed the mansion as its own. The majestic red brick building must have been beautiful when first built, but now, it only holds the mysterious charm that old ruins have with its secrets and signs of the passing of time. 

The Baroque styled house, also known as the old Lui Family Mansion (劉家古宅民雄鬼屋) is located in Chiayi, southwestern Taiwan. It’s a hot and humid climate, but the story surrounding this house is a chilling one. The Minxiong Mansion is an eerie place, so forlorn, but famous as it is considered Taiwan’s most famous haunted place. A fact especially seen during ghost month were visitors flock to the site to catch a glimt of something paranormal going on in the quiet countryside.

Read More: Check out the rest of our ghost stories in haunted houses and mansions here.

The Haunted Minxiong Mansion

So what is it about the house that make people claim it is haunted one? A lot of factors have contributed to its rumour of Minxiong Mansion being haunted. Firstly, It’s located along a road with a graveyard close on either side. This has made drivers vary about driving pass for a long time.

The house is also today in a constant state of decay as no one is really paying any attention to it, and the old and dangerous ruins of the house turns out to be a perfect setting one. Then finally, there is the local legend about the house being haunted and cursed from the start. According to this one legend, the one who built it placed some sort of a charm or spell in the house in secret, making everyone living there hear strange noises, footsteps and unexplainable sounds.  Who built it though and why it was cursed never really makes it into this particular legend though.

Read Also: Check out more haunted abandoned places like Yongma Land Abandoned Theme Park and Hauntingly Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital

So who used to live there when it was first built? The three storey house was built in 1929 by Liu Rongyu (劉溶裕), a local businessman and landowner. The baroque architecture the house was built in was very in style with the wealthy merchants in Taiwan at that time.

Liu Rongyu had seven children and wanted somewhere peaceful and quiet to enjoy the countryside and the grandchildren that would follow. But not long after the building was complete, the mansion was completely abandoned, and the owners never came back in the 1950s. And so, the legends about it being haunted started creeping into the once beautiful family mansion.

The Maid in the Haunted Well

Local legends have a lot to say about the reasons the family left Minxiong haunted house. Was it just because of the remote location? The building was so far from everything and an inconvenient place to commute back and forth from work that maybe the family would rather relocate to the city? Or is it something about the story that has been told about the maid? 

The Haunted Well: The allegedly haunted well that can still be found on the property of Minxiong haunted house. It reminds a lot of the ghost story of Okiku who was also a maid that drowned herself in the well on the estate.// Photo: Koala0090, source.

One of the legends about the place, we find a more disturbing reason for the abrupt escape from the mansion. In the surrounding garden from the house there is an old well sealed shut that no longer is filled with water. And from this particular well, the legends of this house seeps through the cracks of the dried up well.

It is said one of the maids of the house had an affair with the man of the Minxiong Mansion. When the story came out, she ended up jumping to her death in the well that can be found outside.

Some versions of the story tell that the wife found out about the affair and tormented the maid, both mentally and in some accounts even physically, until she couldn’t take it anymore and ended her life by drowning herself in the well. But the story didn’t end with the tragic death of the young maid though, and the maid came back for revenge against the masters of the house. As a spirit she returned to torment the family who had tormented her. Every night her ghost terrorized the family until they packed up their things and left to never return. 

In the following years the visitors coming at night to the abandoned building were also haunted. And so many have been rumoured to be struck by bad luck or even illness, taking their life as the vengeful ghost still haunts the grounds. Especially the soldiers of more than one army have been allegedly chased away by the ghost. 

For more ghosts haunting the wells, check out some of our other stories in the MoonMausoleum:

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Banchō Sarayashiki — the Ghost of Okiku

The tale of Banchō Sarayashiki (番町皿屋敷, The Dish Mansion at Banchō) is a well known Japanese ghost story (kaidan). It was popularized in the kabuki theater tradition, and lives on in popular culture and folklore alike.

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The Japanese Army Massacre in Minxiong

The story of the maid has been said to be nothing but gossip and false lies several times, and the Liu family themselves are tired to hear about the strange stories surrounding their old family home. But the following strange happenings after the family left the Minxiong Mansion helps keep the story of the alleged curse of the house. 

During the time the Minxiong haunted house was built and the family lived there, the island of Taiwan was under Japanese rule (1895-1945) that could factor into the story. During this time business flourished after the Japanese built up the city of Chiayi after a devastating earthquake in 1906. At the time, this was the fourth biggest city in all of Taiwan. Perhaps that was not the case after the Japanese left and could that be some of the reasons that the Liu family eventually left the Chiayi countryside?

The more rational explanation would perhaps be that the Liu family simply relocated themselves for business reasons by moving downtown in Chiayi City, something that the family itself have expressed on multiple occasions although it doesn’t fit well with the rumours of the Minxiong Mansion being haunted.  

There also has been stories about the Japanese army opening gunfire around Minxiong haunted house for no apparent reason when the Japanese army temporarily stayed there, ending in killing innocent soldiers in the crossfires. Who or what did they think they saw in the dark and remote old mansion? The story about the killed soldiers in the mansion have not been verified as a historical fact, and is more told as an anecdote. Verified or not, several holes in the walls from what appears to be from gunfire can be seen still to this day, making one wonder who and why they were fired. 

The Strange Deaths of KMT Soldiers

A few years later after the Japanese army also left the mansion was occupied by the KMT (Kuomintang of China) the Chinese nationalist party of Taiwan, which in fact is officially known as Republic of China (ROC) came into power in 1949. By this time, parts of the Minxiong haunted house had already been damaged during bomb raids by the American army during the second world war and the interior of the house had been stripped away to build the nearby schools. You could say that the place already looked a little haunted.

Some soldiers from the KMT were stationed at the house in 1949. At this time there was no electricity and the Minxiong Mansion and the grounds around were completely left in darkness during night time, something the soldiers themselves refused to endure. There were several complaints from the KMT soldiers about seeing a ghost floating outside their window, demanding they had to put up electricity to fight the darkness they thought surrounded them in the house. 

Minxiong Haunted Mansion: Entrance to the Old Liu Family Mansion still have visitors, although no one have lived there for ages. Now, it seems to belong to nature and the wild. It is now mainly visitors that are in search for the paranormal and to try to spook each other that visits.// Source/Flickr

Here, a string of deaths started to give fire to the haunted house rumours. According to the rumours of the deaths it was either that the KMT soldiers residing there got sick and died or on other accounts, thought to be suicides. All of this made the mansion get a reputation as haunted.

But also here, we have some counter intelligence that tells another story and although not haunted it is a tragic one. According to the other version many of the soldiers stationed there suffered badly from homesickness to their mainland China that in turn drove them to kill themselves on this foreign land so far from home. 

Minxiong Haunted House Movie From 2022

In 2022, it was even made a movie about the place and based on the urban legends surrounding the mansion called Minxiong Haunted House (民雄鬼屋). It didn’t really do so well in the box office, but it certainly renewed the interest for the old haunted ghost mansion.

The story is set to the Minxiong Mansion where a mother goes looking for her daughter who goes missing inside the old mansion. They go there during the Qingming Festival to visits the tomb at Chiayi Minxiong Cemetery when her daughter disappears. And on her search for her daughter, she ends up encountering the ghosts within the mansion and has to deal with a haunting past as well.

Minxiong Haunted House: Poster from the 2022 movie called Minxiong Haunted House about the Liu Mansion. The movie is based on the many legends and myths that the ghost mansion has acquired over the years it has been left abandoned. Photo: Disney+

Hauntings During Ghost Month

The story of the Minxiong Mansion continues to inspire and attract visitors, especially during ghost month when people flock to try to see a ghost or two at the old Lui Family Mansion that never seems to rid itself of its haunted reputation.

Read more: The Obon Celebration – The Ghost Festival is around the same time and is also based on the traditions during ghost month.

Ghost Month: Traditionally, that ghosts haunt the island of Taiwan for the entire seventh lunar month, known as Ghost Month. The first day is marked by opening the gate of a temple, symbolizing the gates of hell. On the twelfth day, lamps on the main altar are lit. On the thirteenth day, a procession of lanterns is held. On the fourteenth day, a parade is held for releasing water lanterns. Incense, food and spirit paper money are offered to the spirits to deter them from visiting homes. During the month, people avoid surgery, buying cars, swimming, moving house, marrying, whistling and going out or taking pictures after dark. It is also important that addresses are not revealed to the ghosts.//Photo: mahe haroutinian on Pexels.com

Every year, especially in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, or Ghost Month, the Minxiong haunted house gets plenty of visitors. The floors of the house have long collapsed, and the red bricked walls has started to crumble, soon it will perhaps disappear completely.

Any plans to restore the haunted and decaying house have long been rejected by the Liu family as they want nothing to do with it anymore. The Minxiong Mansion will soon be taken by the forest and swallowed whole, unable to reveal the truth of what actually happened at the manor.

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References

18 Creepy Haunted House Stories – True Ghost Stories 

Abandoned Taiwan: The Old Liu Family Mansion at Minxiong 

Liu mansion in Chiayi voted top haunted house 

Minxiong Haunted House | A Thrill Seeking Adventure

興中村 

Minxiong Haunted House 民雄鬼屋

民雄鬼屋 

【古蹟探索】台灣四大鬼屋之首–民雄鬼屋名列亞洲十大鬼屋的民雄劉家古宅追追追| 貓大爺| 鳴人堂

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The Obon Celebration – The Ghost Festival

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Light your lanterns, put on your Yukata and get ready for The Ghost festival in Japan called The Obon Celebration. The festival, also known as Bon festival is a three day long festival each year in the late and hot summer to honor the dead.

Why is every Japanese ghost story set during the hot and humid summer nights? It’s not really, but a staggering amount is and there is a reason for it!

Beautiful lanterns: Bon-odori festval at Higashiyama Onsen (Fukushima) 17 August 2009. Photo by: Yoichiro Akiyama/source

In mid July you can hear the sound of wind chimes and there is shaved ice on every corner in the summer heat with people wearing their traditional Yukata. Perhaps coming from or going to one of the big parades? The cicadas sings and the Japanese takes the time to tell their many ghost stories in the hot summer nights.

Fun fact, some says that telling a chilling ghost story in the hot humid summers in Japan, will help cool you down, because of the goose bumps you get from being scared. And because of that, a trend in the Edo period started with telling ghost stories in the theaters in the summer times, called Kaidan.

Read Also: Some of the most famous Kaidan ghost stories is: The Myth of Oiwa — The Paper Lantern Ghost, Botan Dōrō – Tales of the Peony Lantern and Banchō Sarayashiki — the Ghost of Okiku. Check out the full story here.

The Obon Celebration is not only an ancestral celebration from the old days they keep alive. Horror movies takes over the cinema, Kabuki theaters put on their traditional ghost plays and teenagers dares each other to visit the cemeteries at night, making the whole festival seem very similar to the modern Halloween celebration in the west.

The paranormal hunters are also about, visiting well known haunted locations around the country and the belief in spirits reach an all time high. But there are also less sinister traditions that comes with the festival.

The Buddhist Obon Celebration

So what really is the The Obon Celebration other than watching horror movies, telling ghost stories and ghost hunting? Obon (お盆) or just Bon (盆) is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one’s ancestors that incorporated the Japanese native folk religion Shinto, differentiating it a bit from the other Buddhist Ghost Festivals from other countries.

The Obon Celebration originated from the Indian and Chinese Ghost Festival during ghost month. There are many variant of this ghost festivals across the Asian continent coming from the same buddhist story.

Read Also: Interested in more haunted Japanese tales? Have a look at all our ghost stories from Japan

The Obon Celebration is one of the few events on the Japanese calendar that focuses on the importance of family and is there to give the families in Japan time together. It is not a public holiday, but customary to be given leave to travel to your hometown, back to your family. Both the living, as well as the dead.

Welcoming the Dead: “Bonfire for the Spirits of the Dead (Okuribi)”, two-panel screen, Color painting on silk from 1916. Showing how the Japanese light fires to welcome the spirits of the dead during Obon in a ritual known as Mukaebi.

When is Obon Celebrated?

The Obon Celebration has been going on every summer for over 500 years. The exact dates changes according to where you live though because the lunar calendar was changed in favor to the Gregorian calendar instead. During these days the employers often grant their workers and the trains, planes and busses are filled with people out in the countryside to celebrate it with their family or into the cities to join the big parades and happenings throughout all big cities.

Read Also: More articles on Paranormal Festivals and Happenings found in the MoonMausoleum.

In eastern Japan, it is held 15th of July, but in the western part it’s held on August 15. However, in Okinawa and the Amami Islands it’s different again and follow the Chinese way to celebrate on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month like their ghost festival. In common though, the festival lasts for three days and the official Obon holiday is from 13-15 July.

Visiting the Grave: A huge part of The Obon Celebration is going home and visiting the graves of your ancestors, clean them and make offerings to them throughout the festival before sending them back to the afterlife.

It is believed that during these three days the ancestors spirits return to the world to visit their relatives. In this time the veil between the spirit world and the world of the living is at its thinnest and therefore the spirit can pass through.

How do the Japanese Celebrate Obon?

To prepare for the return of the ancestors during the The Obon Celebration, the Japanese clean the grave sites in a ritual called Haka Mari. From the newly cleaned graves it gives a path to them back to the house in a ritual called mukae-bon. A spirit altar is put up back at the home and offerings like fruit, flowers and incense is given.

Floating lanterns: Tōrō nagashi float in the river in Hiroshima, as part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony in 2009. Photo: 藤谷良秀(Yoshihide Fujitani) /source

The Obon Celebration begins with Mukaebi, which is a ritual of lightning fires to guide spirits home for the duration of the festival. Often in the form of lanterns hung in front of the houses.

In this way the Obon Celebration reminds much of the western All Saints Days or Halloween celebration as it is believed the veil separating the living and the dead world is thinner and it’s a time for hauntings and ghost roaming the world.

Read Also: Halloween Traditions Across the World

The lanterns most often used is the traditional paper chochin lanterns, but how you use these lanterns and were is very different from region to region.

In some regions of Japan they light up huge fires outside the houses instead of lanterns. Like they do in The Daimonji Festival in Kyoto were they light up series of , 200m-long, character-shaped bonfires built on mountainsides.

When the Obon Celebration ends, the chochin lanterns is often used to guide them back to the spirit world, a ritual called okuri-bon.

On the final evening of the Obon festival it is thought that placing floating lanterns down the rivers will help guide the spirits back to the spirit world if you live close to a river or some sort of water. This tradition has gained a lot of popularity in modern time.

This ceremony is called Tōrō nagashi 灯籠流し, but the custom of sending floating lanterns during the Obon Celebration differs from place to place. The largest floating lanterns event though is in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to commemorate the victims of the atomic bombs during the second world war.

Welcoming and Feeding the Hungry Ghosts

One of the things The Obon Celebration is for, is to ease the suffering of spirits. To do this they have to perform the ritual of segaki 施餓鬼, meaning feeding the hungry ghosts, otherwise known as a vengeful spirit, or in the western tradition: a poltergeist. It is a ritual of Japanese Buddhist tradition.

Read Also: Interested in more ghost stories about the Hungry ghosts? How about reading about the chinese ghost story of: The Story of Tu-Po – The Hungry Ghost or about the Japanese vengeful ghost: Onryo – The Japanese Vengeful Spirit

During the festival, the ritual is performed at Buddhist temples and more offerings are given to the hungry ghosts: Rice and water. This is for the muenbotoke, or the ghosts with no living relatives that have no one to welcome them.

The food served is often vegetarian and a thing eaten much of is sticky rice balls called ohagi and odango.

Another significant ritual people do during the Obon festival is to craft a cucumber horse and eggplant cow, known as shōryō uma (精霊馬, “spirit horse”) or ushi uma (牛馬, “cow horse”). This type of carved food works almost as a vessel for the ancestors to come back home when the festival starts and return when it’s over.

Food Offerings at the Alter: Cucumber and Eggplant crafted as a vessel so the spirits can come and go during the Obon Festival //Source: Wikimedia

The Buddhist Dance from the Spirit Realm Bon Odori

But exactly why do the Buddhists and buddhism influenced places celebrate the dead during this time? It is best seen through one of the ways the Japanese celebrate.

The Bon Dori Dance 盆踊りis a dancing style performed during The Obon Celebration. It comes from the story of Maha Maudgalyayana, or simply Mokuren which was the incident that made people celebrate the ghost festival in the first place. He was a disciple of Buddha and used his powers to look into the spirit realm. There he saw his mother, and saw she had become a hungry ghost.

He asked Buddha what to do and Buddha said to give offerings to the monks that completed their summer retreat on the 15th day of the 7th month. Mokuren did it and it worked. His mother was freed from the suffering of being a hungry ghost. He burst out dancing from pure joy.

Bon Odori Dance: This is a scene from one of the dance festival at the Hanazono Shrine, Shinjuku, Tokyo city. They are celebrating The Obon Celebration. Yukata-clad people dance in circles around the yagura as the music plays just as Maha Maudgalyayana did when he saved his mother from the afterlife as a hungry ghost.

The dance has so many variations and each region perform their local dance with their own music, however, the Japanese taiko drum is often used to the melodies of old folk songs.

There are several big parades showcasing the Bon Odori dance during the Obon Celebrations. The Tokushima Awa Festival (阿波踊り) is perhaps the most well known bon odori dance that draws millions of visitors to Tokushima to watch and join the huge parades in the city. There are the also Gujo Odori Festival in Gifu (郡上おどり) and the Akita Bon Odori Nishimonai Festival (西馬音内盆踊り). These are all well known for their Bon Dori during the ghost festival, but it is held smaller Bon Odori dances as well everywhere.

Since the celebration and all its customs is so different from region to region, the dance will look so different as well. But very often it is people lining up in a circle around a wooden scaffold made for the festival called Yagura. The dance can also include the history of the region as well. Like mimicking fishing in fishing areas, dance moves reminding of digging in coal mining areas and the likes. What they have in common though is their intent is to honor their ancestors and those that came before us.

Things to Watch out for During the Ghost Festival

Although mostly a family holiday and a time to spend with your family and religious days of remembrance and folk festivities, there are also several superstition that are said to be remembered during the days.

The first rule during Obon to beware of is to not take pictures during the night so not to capture a ghost. Perhaps a bit difficult because of all the festivities people take a photo of to remember.

It is also said not to swim as it is more likely to be drowned by a ghost. Do not steal the food offering to the hungry ghost of obvious reasons. Do not hang your clothes out to dry in the night as iit believed that the dead will wear them and don’t put the slipper heals towards your bed. Ghost will find your bed and climb into it, causing sleep paralysis.

All in all, do not do anything but being respectful to the dead during the Obon Celebration.

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References:

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bon_Festival
https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/obon-festival-in-japan
https://www.tokyocreative.com/articles/18387-chilling-tales-for-hot-nights-ghosts-in-japan
Season of Ghosts: The Japanese Tradition of Scary Summer Stories | Work in Japan for engineers
What is Obon? Japan’s festival for the dead.

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Ghost of Tu-Po — The Hungry Ghost

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After the Chinese nobleman Tu Po was betrayed by his own king and fellow nobles, he became a vengeful ghost, or Hungry Ghost as it is known as in Buddhism. Even in his afterlife he sought revenge on those who betrayed him and fought to restore his honor.

The concept of a ghost with unfinished business is found around the globe. In the eastern part of the world they are often known as Hungry Ghosts and they are deadly.

China has such a varied an long history, diverse culture, with different regions, religions and traditions as most ancient countries has. The tales and beliefs changes according to the ebb and flow of time and the legends of the hungry ghosts are many and varied.

Read More about: Chinese Ghosts and Haunted Places

The Hungry Ghost in Chinese Mythology

Before delving into the legend about Tu Po and how he was betrayed by his own king, let us have a closer look at exactly what a Hungry Ghost is.

As much of Chinese folklore and mythology comes from Buddhism, there are many similarities to other Buddhist countries. In any case it has been believed that every living person will become a ghost when we die known as a guǐ 鬼. It will then weaken, and fade away, dying again for a second time.

As mentioned earlier, the Hungry Ghost is not only a Chinese phenomenon, but a Buddhist as well as Asian one. Ghost stories of vengeful ghost can be found also in Japan with the Onryo or Korea with the Virgin Ghost for example.

This concept of the spirit of the deceased weakening before disappearing is seen as only natural and how it is supposed to be. The ancestors are honored, given sacrifices and held in esteem, thinking they have a part in the world as much as the living. Ancestral worship is the original basic of Chinese religions, and it is a core belief there is an existence after death. A deceased person’s soul is made up of yin and yang parts called hun and po. They are not immortal, and need offerings before going to the underworld for eternal rest.

When Revenge is more Important than Peace

The trouble with ghosts however is when that spirit is driven by anger and malice rather than a peaceful afterlife. This is called a Hungry Ghost (餓鬼 èguǐ and quỷ đói) and only happens on rare occasions as most spirits only wants to be at peace.

The Hungry Ghost: The concept of hungry ghost is found throughout Buddhist traditions. This is from the Sixth section of the Japanese Hungry Ghosts Scroll located at the Kyoto National Museum. The scroll depicts the world of the hungry ghosts, one of the six realms of Buddhism and contains tales of salvation of the hungry ghosts. This particular section shows Ananda, a disciple of Shakyamuni, teaching an incantation to achieve salvation to a hungry ghost who continuously belches flames from his mouth.

The creation of a Hungry Ghost happens when a person’s death has been exceptionally violent or unhappy. The ghosts are often given quite animalistic traits in the ghost stories and records. Although there are different categories and types of hungry ghosts, one common trait among them are that they are seeking a type of revenge of those who wronged them, or simply those who got in the way.

Although most accounts of Tu Po doesn’t give him animalistic traits like a monster, he definitely sought his revenge on those who wronged him like most vengeful ghosts are looking for, and therefore given the title of a Hungry Ghost.

Before becoming a Ghost – Tu-Po the Emperor’s Minister

Before becoming an ancient ghost, Tu Po used to be an important man in ancient China. The nobleman Tu Po 杜伯 is sometimes translated as Du Bo and he was the Duke of Tangdu. This was a Dukedom situated west of State of Yi Lin around were the Shaanxi province in northwest of China is today.

According to legend, the Tangdu people were descendants of the people living in the State of Tang, a Dukedom destroyed by Zhou Gong Dan that now ruled the empire. They were allowed to form a new State of Du, and became known as Tangdu or Du shi (杜氏).

Tu-Po was not always remembered as a hungry ghost, but was a prominent minister to King Xuan of Zhou (also known as Emperor Hsuan) who reigned from 827-783 B.C. Emperor Hsuan was the eleventh king of the Chinese Zhou Dynasty in a time were the kings words were the law and his minister Tu Po had to pay the ultimate price.

The empire: Map over the Jin (Tang) state during the late Spring and Autumn period as it was called, around the time of Tu-Po’s death and after. This is were he, and his ancestors resided and ruled.//Photo: Hugo Lopez – Wikimedia Commons user: Yug

The king is mostly remembered for fighting the ‘Western Barbarians‘, most probably Xianyun, an ancient nomadic tribe that invaded the Zhou empire on the Huai River. He also meddled in debacles of successions in States of Lu, Wey an Qi and was, according to history, not a popular one. Sima Qian, considered father of Chinese historiography, said: “From this time on, the many lords mostly rebelled against royal commands.” And the way the king ended his reign, is rumoured to be the work of the hungry ghost of Tu Po.

So Tu Po was from a stately and very powerful family and not afraid to speak up for what he believed in, even to the most powerful man in the dynasty. And this would cost him his life and make him a hungry ghost, haunting the earth and seeking revenge.

The Fall From Grace and Becoming a Vengeful Ghost

There are not very many sources detailing what happened before the haunting of Tu Po’s hauntings started. But according to one account, this is what happened.

The King: King Xuan of Zhou (827-783 B.C). Formerly known as Emperor Hsuan or King Suan.

On the ninth year as King, King Xuan of Zhou called all the lords of his empire into a meeting that would seal the fate of Tu Po to discuss an oncoming attack.

A rumor was out that a woman was about to become a danger of the town of Jiangshan for some reason, and the King ordered a mass execution of women. Exactly how this one woman could be considered a danger to an entire town is not really explained.

No matter what the reason behind this mass execution of women, it was seen as a truly horrible act that Tu Po disagreed with. Tu-Po publicly opposed to the order he was given and he spoke against his king in a time when the kings word was the law and anything else considered treason.

This final act of opposition would cost him his life as King Xuan ordered his execution for this as he saw this act of opposition as treason.

Before Tu Po was executed however, King Xuan of Zhou was warned that Tu Po’s ghost would stay in this world even in his afterlife to haunt him as Tu-Po himself said:

“If my majesty kills me without reason, the dead may not know, well that’s it. However, on the other hand, I will avenge myself on him, within three years.”

But despise the warnings, King Xuan went through the execution. Even though he was considered innocent of treason by most, Tu-Po was executed around 786 B.C. But this would not be the last time he was seen.

The Revenge of the Hungry Ghost

Weather Tu Po’s final words were taken seriously, is not mentioned. Three years after the execution however, the King brought his dukes to hunt on his own hunting grounds. There were hundreds of chariots, thousands of escorts following them as well as a ghost that promised he would return for revenge.

Ghost festival: Lotus-shaped lanterns are lit and set afloat in rivers and out onto seas to symbolically guide the lost souls to the afterlife.

At noon, Tu-Po appeared as a ghost, riding a white horse and a cart, wearing a red coat with a red bow and arrow in hand. He took up the chase of King Xuan and shot the king in the heart and broke the king’s spine. At the time, it is reported that no one saw the killing and no one heard it. No matter what the real situation was like, The king fell and Tu Po got his revenge.

If King Xuan really died of an arrow is today a bit unclear. In some accounts it is said that King Xuan died of something else after dreaming that Tu Po shot him to death with an arrow.

In both cases, the innocent and wronged minister got his revenge and King Xuan’s son, was the last of the western Zhou to lead.

The story has gone down in traditional legends, ever since. The Chinese philosopher, Mo Zi (470-391 B.C), said this about ghosts and about Tu-Po’s revenge:

“If from antiquity to the present, and since the beginning of man, there are men who have seen the bodies of ghosts and spirits and heard their voices, how can we say that they do not exist?

If none have heard them and none have seen them, then how can we say they do? But those who deny the existence of the spirits say: “Many in the world have heard and seen something of ghosts and spirits. Since they vary in testimony, who are to be accepted as really having heard and seen them?”

As we are to rely on what many have jointly seen and what many have jointly heard, the case of Tu Po is to be accepted.”

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Ghost of Tu-Po — The Hungry Ghost