Yue Fei

Yue Fei (1103–1142), courtesy name Pengju, was a Song dynasty military commander who later became a symbol of patriotic loyalty in Chinese culture. He led Southern Song forces during the 12th-century wars against the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in the north. Because he advocated continued fighting, he was executed in 1142 on trumped-up charges after the Song government negotiated a peace treaty with the Jin. He was eventually pardoned after his death. His image appears in the *Wu Shuang Pu* by Jin Guliang. Yue Fei’s ancestral home was in Xiaoti, Yonghe Village, Tangyin, Xiangzhou, Henan (modern Tangyin County, Anyang, Henan). In 1169, Emperor Xiaozong granted him the posthumous name Wumu, and in 1211 Emperor Ningzong awarded him the posthumous noble title King of E. After his death and the fall of the Song dynasty in 1279, he became widely regarded as a cultural hero and a paragon of loyalty. A biography of Yue Fei, the *Eguo Jintuo Zubian*, was written about sixty years after his death by his grandson, the poet and historian Yue Ke. In 1346 it was included in the *History of Song*, a 496-chapter work compiled by Yuan dynasty prime minister Toqto’a and others. Yue Fei’s biography appears in chapter 365, as biography number 124. Some later historians, including Deng Guangming, have questioned the accuracy of many claims made by Yue Ke. According to the *History of Song*, Yue Fei was named “Fei,” meaning “to fly,” because at his birth a large bird like a swan landed on the roof of his house. The *Chronicle of Yue, Prince of E of Song* was written by Qian Ruwen in 1924. Yue Fei was born into a poor tenant farmer’s family in Tangyin County, Anyang prefecture, Henan. The *Biography of Yue Fei* mentions a flood that displaced his family during his childhood, though his father survived. His father praised him for his faithfulness and asked whether, when employed to handle affairs of the time, he would sacrifice himself for the empire and die for his duty. Yue’s father used the family’s land for humanitarian efforts, but after the flood destroyed it, the young Yue Fei had to help his father work the fields to survive. He received most of his early education from his father. In 1122, Yue Fei joined the army but had to return home later that year after his father died. In ancient China, a person was required to temporarily resign from work when a parent died to observe a mourning period—typically three years, though actually 27 months. During this time, he wore coarse mourning robes, caps, and slippers and abstained from silken garments. When his mother died in 1136, he withdrew from a decisive battle against the Jin for mourning, but his generals begged him to return, cutting the bereavement short. The novel *Shuo Yue Quanzhuan* gives a highly fictionalized account of Yue’s early life. It says that after being swept from Henan to Hubei, Yue and his mother were saved by the country squire Wang Ming and allowed to stay as domestic helpers. The young Yue Fei later became the adopted son and student of the Wang family’s teacher, Zhou Tong, a famous military master. Zhou taught Yue and his three sworn brothers—Wang Gui, Tang Huai, and Zhang Xian—literary lessons on odd days and military lessons, including archery and the eighteen weapons of war, on even days. After years of practice, Zhou entered his students into the Tangyin County military examination, where Yue Fei won first place by shooting nine arrows in succession through the bullseye of a target 240 paces away. He was then asked to marry the daughter of Li Chun, an old friend of Zhou and the county magistrate. But Zhou soon died of illness, and Yue lived by his grave through the winter until his sworn brothers tore it down, forcing him to return home to care for his mother. Yue eventually married and later participated in the imperial military examination in Kaifeng. There he defeated all competitors and turned down an offer from Cai Gui, the Prince of Liang, to forfeit his chance at the military degree for a rich reward. This angered the prince, and they agreed to a private duel, in which Yue killed the prince and fled the city to avoid execution. Shortly after, he joined the Song army to fight the invading Jurchen-led Jin. The *Yue Fei Biography* states that when Yue was born, a Peng flew crowing over the house, so his father named him Fei. Before he was even a month old, the Yellow River flooded, and his mother got inside a clay jar holding baby Yue. The waves pushed the jar downriver, where they landed ashore. Despite the family’s poverty, Yue was studious and particularly favored the *Zuo Zhuan* edition of the *Spring and Autumn Annals* and the strategies of Sun Tzu and Wu Qi.