‘China upset with the 190-foot-tall statue’: Moving the massive artwork costs over $20 million.

A 190-foot-tall statue of Chinese warrior-god Guan Yu will cost the Chinese city of Jingzhou $20 million to relocate. Local anti-graft officials were outraged by this eye-watering sum, and released a sharply worded statement on September 7 calling for greater oversight of ‘large projects’- like the construction of this colossal bronze statue in 2016. Guan Yu, a famous warrior from the Three Kingdoms period, is revered as a god of war in China.

Local officials say the statue in Hubei province in central China was an ‘illegally constructed and then removed’ waste of more than 300 million yuan ($46 million). The titanic version of the Chinese general cost around $26 million to build in 2016. Also, the statue stands in an area where city regulations bar buildings from being taller than 78 feet, but its advocates were able to circumvent a regulatory loophole to get its construction approved. The South China Morning Post described the statue as the world’s largest bronze statue of the general when it was unveiled.

However, not everyone was a fan. The Chinese central government claimed the statue ‘ruined Jingzhou’s historical appearance and culture,’ which led the Jingzhou Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development to decide to move it from its original location. Images of the war god being ‘decapitated’ while its pieces are removed swept several Chinese social media sites. Some city residents also complained that the attraction was an eyesore, telling Sina News that ‘Jingzhou locals do not go there’. It is being moved to Dianjiangtai, a less-conspicuous tourist hub around five miles from its current location.

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Guan Yu joined the league of other mega-statues in the country at the time of its construction. Among the more bizarre sculptures are behemoth Buddhas and gargantuan goddesses, as well as a full-sized replica of Egypt’s sphinxes and a gigantic Marilyn Monroe. China’s big-statue boom isn’t over in some cities just yet. Ulanqab, China’s ‘potato city’, proposed building a double-sized statue of a giant potato to celebrate its heritage in September.