As the greatest urbanisation drive in history swells China's cities with ranks of identikit apartment blocks, one culinary businessman is indulging his architectural appetite with a visual feast of extravagant, outlandish castles.
"I don't have any hobbies, except for planting trees and building castles," said Liu Chonghua, standing on a crenellated turret atop the largest of the six he has constructed.
Liu, who made millions from feeding China's growing appetite for cakes and bread, now plans to make his home in the grey stone structure, which resembles Britain's Windsor Castle and towers above the surrounding rice fields.
His others include a red-brick fairy-tale edifice stacked with soaring spires, which seems to have emerged from Disney's version of Aladdin, and a white confection with candy-coloured towers reminiscent of Neuschwanstein, the hilltop fantasy built by Bavaria's 19th century 'Mad' King Ludwig II.
"When I was a child I heard stories about princes and castles," said Liu, 59, adding that he grew up "with an empty stomach every day" in China's countryside and was sent to dig ditches during the political upheavals of the 1960s.
After making his fortune, he said, "I wanted to turn the castles of my dreams into something real."
Liu is one of several Chinese millionaires channelling their wealth into eccentric projects, but his designs have led to death threats and put him on a collision course with local officials in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing.
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