Confucius' hometown was Qufu.
With a history spanning back thousands of years, Qufu city remains the legendary birthplace of many Chinese sages, such as Confucius and Mencius. To memorialize these great sages, the locals built temples and cemeteries, later opened to the general public as tourist attractions. The most famous attractions are the Temple of Confucius (Kong Miao), the Cemetery of Confucius (Kong Lin) and the Kong Family Mansion (Kong Fu), together now called the Three Kongs.
Confucius started his teaching career at the age of 24.
Confucius started his teaching career in 527 BCE, when he was only 24 years old. His main objective in the teaching career was to bring about reform in the leadership of that time, which had negatively been impacted by corruption and lawlessness.
To him, an educator’s main responsibility was to shape people into becoming individuals with integrity.
He also taught that leaders could influence their subjects into following the law by emphasizing ritual propriety and virtue according. Confucius offered instructions to all the people regardless of the amount of money they paid as a fee. He only required his students to show the capacity and appetite for improvement.
He died before Confucianism became popular.
Before his death, Confucius wasn't convinced that his teachings had made any important impact on the Chinese way of life. Following his death in 479 B.C., those who followed his teachings organized a funeral and went ahead to establish a period of mourning as a way of honoring him.
His popularity grew significantly in the years that followed his death and by the 4th century BC, Confucius was perceived as a sage. His philosophy became the basis state ideology during the first Han Dynasty in the 2nd century BC. The followers of his teachings are the ones who established Confucianism, which remains one of the largest and longest standing religions in China.
The Temple of Confucius in Qufu is the most renowned in China.
The Temple of Confucius in Qufu was built to worship Confucius, the Chinese thinker and social philosopher whose teachings and philosophy deeply influenced Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese. The temple consists of a group of grand, majestic, oriental-featured ancient buildings and was built at the site of Confucius’ former residence.
There are many other Confucius temples all over China and neighboring influenced countries.
The Five Classics of Confucianism were probably not written by Confucius!
In imperial China, in order to be an official scholar, people had to learn the Confucian classic texts called the Five Classics. According to tradition, the Five Classics were penned by Confucius. Modern scholars, however, doubt that any of the material can really be ascribed to Confucius himself.
The Five Classics are:
The Book of Changes, presenting a system of division;
The Classic of Poetry, with 305 poems;
The Book of Rites, a re-creation of the original Classic of Rites of Confucius lost during the Qin book purge;
The Book of history, with documents and speeches written by early rulers.