Zhuge Liang grew up near Linyi before moving south to Longzhong (in modern Hubei) where Liu Bei found him and persuaded him to enter service. The site associated with his early years in Linyi has been developed as a memorial area with reproductions of the thatched cottage where he is said to have lived and studied, stone steles, and exhibits on his life and strategic thought.
The memorial is more evocative than historically rigorous — the original cottage is long gone — but the landscape of the Yimeng foothills around it has a genuine character, and the site draws Chinese visitors who have absorbed Zhuge Liang through the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and its many dramatizations. The combination with the Wang Xizhi residence nearby makes a logical day of visiting the city's two most celebrated historical figures.