Across more than two thousand years of imperial Chinese history, only a small number of emperors are recorded as having performed the full feng and shan ceremony, among them Han Wudi and Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han, Emperor Gaozong of Tang together with Empress Wu, later herself China's only reigning female emperor, and Song Zhenzong, whose own performance in 1008 is generally regarded by historians as the last full traditional feng and shan and, by some accounts, as a somewhat forced and less than fully convincing claim to the achievement the rite was meant to certify, after which the ceremony effectively fell out of imperial practice even though the theoretical claim to perform it was never formally renounced by any dynasty.
The specific ritual content, involving buried texts addressed to Heaven and Earth sealed within the mountain and elaborate processions of court officials, is known mainly through historical records such as Sima Qian's Shiji, which treats the rite as already ancient and significant in his own time, and through inscriptions and later commentary rather than a single continuous unbroken ritual manual. The rite's legacy endures in Mount Tai's continuing status as a major pilgrimage site and UNESCO World Heritage location, visited today by ordinary pilgrims seeking blessing rather than by emperors seeking cosmic ratification of a reign, a use that long outlasted the specific imperial ceremony itself.