National heroes are important in the development of nationalist thinking. One important figure in this context is General Yue Fei (1103-42), who unsuccessfully fought the invading Jurchen in the twelfth century. Shortly after his execution, a temple was built in his honour in Hangzhou. Local chronicles show that this temple was constantly renovated in later dynasties. Due to his continuous worship as a loyal warrior-even during the Qing dynasty-his temple became a powerful site of identity. His veneration as a national hero in the course of the twentieth century has, however, posed a problem to a post- 1911China that felt compelled to sustain a multi-ethnic nation-state, whilst at the same time facing the difficulty of not being able to do without General Yue Fei. This article shall make it apparent that his resurrection as a national hero in the twentieth century was possible because of certain narrative strategies that had already been propagated by the Manchurian rulers of the eighteenth century.