The Duke of Thunder

Lei Gong, the Duke of Thunder (also Leishen, the Thunder God), is the Chinese god of thunder, a fearsome deity who punishes the guilty, both mortal criminals whose crimes have escaped human justice and evil spirits, by striking them with thunderbolts. He is typically depicted as a fierce, blue-bodied, bird-beaked and clawed figure with wings, wielding a mallet and a string of drums which he beats to make the crash of thunder. He does not act alone but heads a small celestial Ministry of Thunder: the lightning is the work of Dianmu, the Mother of Lightning, who flashes her mirrors so that Lei Gong can see his targets clearly and not strike the innocent by mistake, while wind and rain gods complete the storm. In Daoist ritual the powers of thunder (leifa, thunder magic) were harnessed by priests to exorcise and to command spirits, so that Lei Gong and his ministry held an important place in ritual practice as well as in the popular imagination of the storm.