The Guan Yu Statue is a large monument to Chinese deified military general Guan Yu located in Jingzhou,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The statue was designed by Han Meilin, and finished construction in 2016. It stands at 58 metres tall, weighs 1,197 tonnes, and is made of around 4,000 bronze strips. The project began in 2013 when Han Meilin visited Jingzhou for inspiration, and personally oversaw the designing and installing of the statue. Guan Yu is depicted wearing his traditional robes and cloak, whilst wielding his famous guandao known as the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, which weighs 123 tonnes. The figure stands atop a 10 metre pedestal, which resembles an ancient Chinese warship. Inside the base is a 7,710 square-metre museum and shrine to Guan Yu. The project cost 1.5 billion yuan, and was officially opened to the public on June 17, 2016. On the day of the unveiling, activities such as

worship Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. It may involve one or more of activities such as veneration, adoration, praise, and praying. For many, worship is not about an emotion, it is more about a recognition ...

, visiting

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Types Variations of fairs incl ...

s, and praying to Guan Yu were held. Han Meilin was present for the ceremony.

Background

Guan Yu was a Chinese military general serving under the warlord

Liu Bei Liu Bei (, ; ; 161 – 10 June 223), courtesy name Xuande (), was a warlord in the late Eastern Han dynasty who founded the state of Shu Han in the Three Kingdoms period and became its first ruler. Although he was a distant relative of the H ...

during the late

Eastern Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

. His life was lionised and his achievements glorified to such an extent after his death in 220 that he was deified during the

Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and layi ...

. Through generations of story telling, culminating in the 14th-century historical novel ''

Romance of the Three Kingdoms ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' () is a 14th-century historical novel attributed to Luo Guanzhong. It is set in the turbulent years towards the end of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history, starting in 184 AD and ...

'', his deeds and moral qualities have been given immense emphasis, making Guan Yu one of East Asia's most popular paradigms of loyalty and righteousness. He is still worshipped today as a

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schools ...

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

tradition and as a guardian deity in Chinese folk religion and

Taoism Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of Philosophy, philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of China, Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmo ...

. He is also held in high esteem in

Confucianism Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...

Slated relocation

In September 2020, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development criticized the Guan Yu statue as "vain and wasteful", and that its towering presence in the skyline "ruined the character and culture of Jingzhou as a historic city" and called for rectification. An investigation by the state broadcaster

China Central Television China Central Television (CCTV) is a Chinese state- and political party-owned broadcaster controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Its 50 different channels broadcast a variety of programing to more than one billion viewers in six lan ...

revealed that the project's developers only had permission to build the pedestal of the statue (the museum). The developers, treating the statue as a piece of art, claimed to be unaware that large statues required their own planning processes, nor were they aware that the statue's current location had a height limit of 15m. Additionally, land under the statue started to sink under its weight. In response to the central government order, Jingzhou city officials announced in October that the statue will be relocated. The new location of the statue will be 8 km away in Dianjiangtai, where Guan Yu was said to have drilled his troops. The cost of the relocation is estimated at 155 million yuan.

References

{{reflist 2016 sculptures Bronze sculptures in China Sculptures of gods Jingzhou Guan Yu Colossal statues in China 2016 establishments in China Buildings and structures in Hubei