Structure Type: Village temple 村廟.
Location: Su and Shao Families Fort, Yu County, Hebei Province 河北省蔚縣蘇邵堡. The temples are located as part of a single stepped complex at the northern end of the axial road of the fort.
Period: The murals here are result of two separate repairs of the temple. The temple complex was presumably originally built at this site sometime around the founding of the fort in 1545. Two hundred years later in 1756 the whole complex was repaired and repainted. In 1924, the small upper shrine room which contained the temple to the Perfected Warrior was again repaired and repainted, resulting in the present murals. In 2014, the western wall of the Lord Guan and Kṣitigarbha temple collapsed after a heavy summer rainstorm, completely destroying the murals on this side; this has since been repaired. I don’t have my own photos of the pre-destruction murals, but fortunately, these have been fully published in 蔚縣寺廟壁畫.
Artist: The artist for the 1756 repair was Cai Yonghe 蔡永和. In 1924, the artist and stele-composer is listed as “the school-graduate, Zhao Deren 畢業生趙得任.
Mural Contents: The murals in the lower temple to Lord Guan 關公 are from 1756. These show events from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義. Like an idiot, I took extremely bad photos of these.
The murals in the upper hall are from 1924. These show events from the hagiography of the Perfected Warrior.
Full Gallery
