Temples are scatered all over China-Buddhist or Taoist, large or small, for monks or or nuns.The objects they were built to worship are in general of two kinds. Some are dedicated to heaven, earth, immortals, fairies, spirits or what is inexplicable and supernatural,others to deified historical personages or beloved historic figures. Of all deified personages, the two that were most universally glorified and revered were Confucius (Kong Qiu) and General Guan Yu the military hero. Temples dedicated to Confucius are called Wen'Miao or Temples to the God of Culture and those to Guan Yu Wu'Miao or Temples to the God of War.

Before the founding of the People's Republic of China,temples dedicated to Confucius and Guan Yu were found everywhere in China. The most magnificent Confucian temple was built in Qufu of Shandong Province while the most splendid temple dedicated to Guan Yu was erected in Xiezhou is Shanxi Province.
The Temple of Guan Yu in Xiezhou is situated near the West Gate of the town which is under the jurisdiction of Yuncheng prefecture. As Xiezhou is the birthplace of Guan Yu, the local temple to the general is ,so to say, the "father" of all temples to the God of War. One of the few palace-style ancient architectural structures that have been preserved to this day, the temple covers some 18500 sq.m. Both in terms of size and of magnificence,it tops all other temples dedicated to Guan Yu in China.

General Guan Yu,whose date of birth is unknown but who died in A.D. 219,was one of the most intrepid warriors in history. He helped Liu Bei of the Kingdom of Shu to gain power following the fall of the Han Dynasty(206 B.C.---A.D.220).Reputedly a blacksmith by origin,he was a giant of a man with amazing muscular strength and superior martial skills. In Chinese literary works,he is described as a man with a dignified and awe-inspiring appearance,like a celestial god with big ,round eyes and bushy eyebrows.According to another story,he was a tofu or beancurd pedlar rather than a blacksmith by trade and from this has sprung the Chinese idiom huo'ruan'ren'ying or tough guy selling soft wares. Guan Yu was well known for his readiness to defend the weak and the poor against injustices done to them.There was in his day a local despot nicknamed Squire Tiger who always browbeat the poor and the helpless. To force the local people to buy water from him ,he once, despite all protests,had all the other clear-water wells in town filled up with shards and dirt.Deeply enraged,Guan Yu killed the despot and fled the town.For this,his own parents were forced to commit suicide,his mother drowning herself in a well and his father jumping to his death from a high place. Towards the end o fthe Eastern Han Dynasty, he wandered to the prefecture of Zhou in today's Hebei Province where he fell in with Liu Bei and Zhang Fei.The three fook oath in a peach garden and became sworn brothers,with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei vowing to assist Liu Bei in his armed uprising. This incident froms the basis of a Chinese folktale entitled"Taking oath in the Peach Garden."

A legendary figure in Chinese history,Guan Yu is described as a hero in stories and dramas of different ages.According to one such story,in the last days of Han when the joint armies of Yuan Shao,Cao Cao and Liu Bei were fighting against Dong Zhou,the treacherous minister who had made a puppet of the young Han emperor, General Hua Xiong under Dong had succeeded in cutting down several generals of he joint forces,sending chills down the spine of everyone in the enemy camp.At such a critical juncture,Guan Yu came forward,voluntering to go and fight hua Xiong.Heaetened by such an offer,Cao Cao placed a cup of warmed wine before him in token of his appreciation.Leaving the wine in the tent, Guan Yu mounted his horse and charged at Hua Xiogn.When he returned with the decapitatedhead of the enemy general, the wine was said to be still warm. This is thegist of the popular Chinese story of how Guan Yu cut down Hua Xiong before his wine cooled.

In A.D200, as a result of a realignment of forces ,confused fight ing began anew between Liu Bei and Cao Cao. In one battle,the former was defeated by the latter and Guan Yu became a captive in Cao Cao's hands. As he admired Guan Yu's prowess and hoped he could have the latter's service,Cao Cao did not kill the captive general. Instead, he showed him great hospitality, showering gifts of gold and silver upon him and wining and dining him frequently. To win Guan Yu over an dmade him renounce his allegiance to Liu Bei before all else. This is the origin of the Chinese saying, in reference to Guan Yu initially but now to similar cases, shen'zai'cao'ying'xin'zai'han or physically in the Cao camp but at heart yearning to go back to Shuhan. Then in the fighting between Cao Cao and Yuan Shao when the latter was for a time apparently having the upper hand with his two generals Yan Liang and Wen Chou, Guan Yu, to show his gratitude to Cao Cao for his hospitlity, hurried to the front and engaged the two generals of Yuan Shao,hacking them down with all his strength. But later when he got intimations of the whereabouts of Liu Bei from Cao Cao's soldiers, he hurried off at once to where Liu Bei was said to be ,leaving all of Cao Cao's gifts behind to look for his sworn brother.

Riding alone on horseback in his attempt to leave the territory of Cao Cao ,Guan Yu found his way blocked wherever he went.Nothing daunted, Guan Yu fought his way through five well-guarded passes and in the process killed six of Cao Cao's generals. His heroic exploits on this hazardous journey constituted the most brilliant chapter in Guan Yu's military career,as described in two absorbing tales of adventure entitled respectively "Riding Alone on Horseback for a Thousand Miles" and "Forcing Five Passes and Killing Six Enemy Generals." But when he arrived at Gucheng in Liu Bei's territory,he was stipped at the gate by Zhang Fei who refused him entry,believing that he had shifted his allegiance to Cao Cao. Meanwhile, Cao Cao's men had also arrived in hot pursuit. To show his loyalty to his sworn brother Liu Bei, Guan Yu engaged Cao Cao's veteran general Cai Yang and killed the latter in fighting. All these stories based on Guan Yu's military exploits are relished by ordinary Chinese.

The Battle of Chibi or the Red Cliff is a famous battle in Chinese history in which a numerically inferior force defeated its stornger enmey. In this battle, the allied forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan confronted and beat Cao Cao's army of 830 000 strong.

When Cao Cao wa sfleeing after his defeat from the scene of battle , he found his way again and again blocked by the allied forces. When he came to Huarong Trail where an ambush had been laid by Guan Yu, he had only about a dozen men and horses with him, all utterly exhausted and helpless. At this juncture, Guan Yu recalled Cao Cao's kindnesses to him in the past while he was the latter's captive. His deep sense of gratitude led him to violate his own pledge and he let Cao Cao off at the risk of being beheaded himself. Thus Cao Cao was enabled to escape and later to regroup his army, becoming in time the sovereign of one of he three kingdoms that idvided up China for some sixty years (A.D. 220---280) . In Chinese folklore, this is the story of "Letting Cao Cao off for Old Time's sake on Huarong Trail."

When Guan Yu was garrison commander of the strategic town of Jingzhou, he laid siege to Fancheng where the enemy garrison commander was Cao Cao's brother Cao Ren. Cao Cao sent a seven-column army under Yu jin to relieve the siege. Once again Guan Yu achieved military fame by diverting floods and besetting the enemy columns with flooding water and he captured Yu Jin alive in this battle. However, Guan Yu had his weaknesses too, being self-willed and excessively self-confident. This led him to recklesly leave Jingzhou inadequately defended while he was away fighting against Cao Ren. Sun Quan, no longer an ally of Liu Bei an dalways ambitious for power, seized the opportunity to make a surprise attack. Defeated at Maicheng, Guan Yu was captured alive by Sun Quan and later executed.

Guan Yu's unquestioning liyalty to the sovereigh was a quality that qppealed to rulers of all feudal dynasties. That may account for his being posthumously honoured with one title after another. In Liu Bei's time, he was given the title of Marquis of Loyalty and Valour. In the Song Dynasty,he was raised to dukedom and princedom and in Ming and Qing the title of Xie'Tian'Da'Di' or the Great God That Helps the Son of Heaven was conferred on him, followed by some even more resounding titles. Thus a brave general of the Kingdom of Shu became in time a deity n heaven. Hence the erection of Guan Yu Temples everywhere in the country. Because of his loyalty, he was regarded as the patron sint of many underworld societies since the time of Han and this has remained a common practice in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Sinagapore today.

The Guan Yu Temple of Xiezhou was first built around A.D.589, in the early years of the Sui Dynasty,and rebuilt in the Song Dynasty. Situated at the northern foot of Zhongtiao Mountain, it faces Yanchi Lake to the east, in the midst of magnificent natural scenery. As more and more posthumous titles were conferred on him,the original temple was several times enlarged and renovated in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The temple as it looks now, with a northern section and a southern section, was reconstructed at the time of Emperor Kangxi in Qing after the original structure was destroyed in a big fire. In the southern section there is the Garden of the Sworn Brothers, the Pavilion of Gentlemen, the Pavilion of Three Loyal Brothers, Lotus Pond and a rock hill. The northern section is the temple proper which is further divided into a front court and a back court. In the front court the main architectural structure is the Hall of Tranquillity while in the back court it is the Spring and Autumn Tower. Aligned along a north-south axis in the front court are the entry gate, the meridian gate, the Tower of Imperial Inscription and the Hall of Tranquility with such adjunct structures on the two flanks as memorial halls, talbet halls and a bell tower. In the back court stands the Spring and Autumn Tower before which is wooden memorial arch and on the two sides are halls housing respectively Guan Yu's famous weapon, a big halberd-like knife with a long shaft and his official seal. The two halls are in perfect symmetry and the overall impression such a layout gives is an architecural structure of great majesty.

Although the front court and the back court form independent architectural units, they complement each other and present a harmonious overall look. In all , the front court and the back court are surrounded by more than a hundred buildings, all symmetrically laid out ,in the way traditional Chinese architectural complexes were designed.

The Hall of Tranquillity, which is the main temple hall, has in the cenre a shrine that houses a sculpture of Guan Yu. In a sitting posture, the effigy wears an expression at once solemn and fearless. On all sides of the shrine are richly ornamented columns and beams and sculptures of guarding warriors. On the gilded columns are carved designs of coiling dragons and puffs of clouds. There is a fierce stare in the dragons'eyes, looking as if they were on the point of rising into the air and this lends an air of solemnity to Guan Yu's sculpture. Above the shrine is an inscribed board bearing a four-word phrase in the calligraphy of Emperor Kangxi whose English equivelent could be : Loyalty that Props up Heaven and Earth. Over the lintel of the front door is another board with Emperor Xianfeng's inscription which reads: A Supreme Being in All Ages. Under the eaves is a two-word inscription by Emperor Aianlong which reads: Divine Valour. The Spring and Autumn Tower is the highest structure in the temple, standing at some 30 metres. It is a two-storey struture, both storeys being surrounded by roofed galleries. On the second floor is a lifelike sculpture of Guan Yu which shows him, sitting sideways, reading The Spring and Autumn Annals by Confucius at night, his right hand holding the book, the elbow resting ona table and his left hand stroking his beard. Many people in the past believed that it was because Guan Yu was well-versed in this book that he had such unsurpassable loyalty. This sculpture, representing Guan Yu in such a posture and such an activity, later became the prototype for sculptures of Guan yu in other such temples in China.

The Guan Yu Temple of Xiezhou also boasts a large quantity of historic relics such as a resplendent screen wall covered with glazed tiles, exquisitely carved stone arches, massive tripods, iron censors and so on, all of immeasurable artistic value. A visit to this temple will certainly give sightseers a general idea of what the temple to the God of War in China looks like.