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Liangshan Lake--a base area for the peasants' insurrectionary army
An old proverb said that youth should not read the "Legends of the Water Margin" while elder the "Three Kingdoms".
The legend is talking about the story around Liangshan.
 It is said that a prince of Han Dynasty called Liang had hunted the mountain and was buried here. So the mountain got its current name. The low-lying terrain and the bursting of the Yellow River's dyke in Tang and Song Dynasties contributed to the forming of Liangshan Lake which covered several hundred square kilometers. Former highlands were inundated to become islands in Liangshan Lake.
It was said that one peasant uprising army headed by Song Jiang based here, and the grand Legend was coming from this.
As time went on, the grand lake shrank into a rather small lake called Dongping Lake later and was used for flood retarding of the Yellow River . When the water level reaches 41 meters, the lake is 23.5 kilometer long and 6.3 kilometers wide on average and covers 148 square kilometers. The storage is 2.35*108 cubic meters.
You can still hear many hero stories around Liangshan Lake.
Located in the western Shandong Province Plain's Liangshan County, Mt. Liangshan is comprised by eleven hills such as Hutou, Xueshan, Haoshan,Huangshan, Pingshan, Goutoushan, Yuhuangding etc.
Hutou hill, the highest one is only 200 meters but with mountain crest. Songjiang castle was built on the head. There is bowl-wide pit lying at the front of Juyi Hall that was said to be the flag base. Only one pass leads to the head called Heifengkou and was guarded by Li Kui, famous warrior.
Mt. Sili, north of Hutou stores several stone Buddha carvings and is called Cliff with Thousand Buddha. The nearby village named Shimiao is said to be the hometown of Three Ruan Brothers, famous warriors in the Legend.
Jingyanggang, located on the north bank of Yellow River is where Wu Song, another famous hero in the Legend beat tiger.
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