The Legend of Yue Fei

Author: (Qing) Qian Cai / Jin Feng / Pei Xiaowei / Wang Huiqin (Adapted)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: China is a multi-ethnic country with a long history. Its formation process, as described in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is: "The great trend of the world is that division will eventually lead to unity, and unity will eventually lead to division." Therefore, China's five thousand years of civilization is essentially a process of many small states established by different ethnic groups constantly dividing and merging, ultimately leading to unification. Since these divisions and mergers were often achieved through war, China's history has been marked by continuous warfare, causing immense suffering to the people. Those who made outstanding contributions and paid great sacrifices for their ethnic groups or small states in wars were naturally regarded as national heroes. As a result, the people used their own methods—such as oral tradition—to praise and celebrate them, giving rise to many heroic legends. The story of Yue Fei is one of them. Yue Fei (1103–1142) lived during a time when the Chinese land was fragmented into four parts. At that time, apart from the Song Dynasty, there were still the Jin, Mongol, Western Xia, Western Liao, Tibetan, and Dali states. Among them, the Jin Dynasty, established by the northern Jurchen people, was the most powerful and posed the greatest threat to the Song Dynasty. Faced with the continuous invasions of the Jin forces, the Song court split into two factions: the emperor and the treacherous ministers, who were afraid of death and sought to make a compromise, advocating for peace; while most generals and loyal ministers opposed peace and advocated for resistance. Due to the dominance of the peace faction, the Jin forces acted with impunity, escalating their demands: they broke through the capital of Northern Song, Bianliang (now Kaifeng in Henan), captured the emperors Huizong and Qinzong, and led to the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty. Although King Kang of Song ascended the throne (becoming Emperor Gaozong) and established the Southern Song Dynasty, he remained timid and obsessed with temporary peace, retreating step by step, eventually establishing his capital in Lin'an (now Hangzhou in Zhejiang) and abandoning large territories north of the Huai River, while submitting to and paying tribute to the Jin Dynasty, becoming one of the shameful small courts in Chinese history.