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At the temple’s present site, there once stood a thatched hut housing three paper-mâché Royal Lords and several earthen Tiger Generals. At that time the locality was plagued by strange happenings: some folk lost their wits, others fell ill with no cause to be found. The people were terrified and helpless, so they prayed to the Royal Lords for blessing and peace. The next day a fisherman passing the shrine saw flames leaping skyward; going inside to look, he was suddenly possessed by the Royal Lord descending to the altar to perform a rite of pacification. From then on the region regained its tranquility. As the devotees offered incense, the word “Hsueh” floated up in the censer; henceforth the people honored the image as “Royal Lord Hsueh.” Lukang Yong-an Temple is an ancient shrine intimately tied to the history of Lukang’s development. In terms of historical founding, the temple’s principal deity, the Royal Lord of the Hsueh Palace, was invited after the Lukang naval garrison was established in the 23rd year of Kangxi; naval officer Ch’iu brought the deity from his ancestral home in the 37th year of Kangxi and enshrined it for protection, giving it a long heritage. The temple’s secondary deity, the Great Lord Tseng, was a real person whose military exploits are recorded in the county annals. The Great Lord Tseng is Tseng Shao-lung, naval lieutenant who died in the Ch’en Chou-ch’üan uprising of the 60th year of Ch’ien-lung; posthumously he was granted sacrifices and hereditary honors, conferred the rank of fourth grade, and entered the Ch’ang-chung Shrine. The image now enshrined in the temple wears the official robes of a fourth-grade officer. It is also said that though the Great Lord Tseng began as a military licentiate, he excelled in poetry and prose, privately ran a school to educate the villagers, and vigorously recommended scholars for the civil-service exams, thus fostering Lukang’s literary culture and winning the people’s hearts. Consequently, since his enshrinement the Great Lord Tseng has also become like Lord Wenchang himself, an object of worship for devotees seeking academic success for their children.