Worship of the living
During the reign of the Tianqi Emperor in the Ming Dynasty, the eunuch Wei Zhongxian had a lot of power and made a sheng shrine for himself. People who wanted to please him or were scared of him were given these shrines too. In 1627, Lu Wanling, a government official, wrote about the famous philosophers Confucius and Chung-Hsien. In the same year, two other officials named Yuan Chonghuan and Yan Mingtai asked the government to praise Wei Zhongxian and build shrines for him. Many shrines were built, costing a lot of money and causing harm to the people. Huang Yun Yasushi even made a statue to honor Wei Zhongxian.