Yue Fei: The Revived Historical Hero 

Today, we’re going to talk about the latest blockbuster that debuted during the traditional Spring Festival holiday, which has evoked interest in and admiration for a national hero who lived during the Southern Song Dynasty about 1,000 years ago.

Full River Red, a period film directed by acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou, has emerged as the highest-grossing film during the recently concluded Spring Festival holiday, generating total box office revenue of a whopping 3.5 billion yuan, about $521 million USD, as of February 1st.

The blockbuster film, the title of which is eponymous with a well-known poem written by Song Dynasty military general Yue Fei, who lived from 1103 to 1142, revolves around a series of historical events surrounding Yue’s death. The popularity of the film has sparked public admiration for the national hero and witnessed a surge in tourism in Yue’s hometown in Tangyin in central China’s Henan Province.

Several sources state that Yue was born into a poor peasant family in the year 1103. He was named Fei, meaning to fly, because allegedly at the time of his birth, a large bird flew crowing over the house. Despite the family’s poverty, Yue was studious, reading history books, practicing archery, and studying military tactics.

In 1125, the Jurchen-ruled Jin Dynasty, lasting from 1115 to 1234 in northern China invaded the Song territory. After witnessing many people being slaughtered or enslaved, Yue decided to join the Song army. His mother showed support and encouragement by tattooing four Chinese characters across his back – jinzhong baoguo, literally, serve the country with utmost loyalty. Starting as an ordinary soldier, he got promoted quickly and earned a reputation for his keen military insight and extraordinary martial art skills.

In 1127, the Jin army besieged the Song capital of Bianliang, which is the present-day Kaifeng in central China’s Henan Province, and captured the eighth Song emperor Huizong and ninth emperor Qinzong, along with most members of the imperial court. This event is known as the Jingkang Incident in history because it took place during the Jingkang era of the reign of emperor Qinzong. This marked the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, which lasted from 960 to 1127.

But there was one imperial member who made a lucky escape because he was not in the capital city at the time. It was Zhao Gou, the ninth son of emperor Huizong and younger brother of emperor Qinzong. With the assistance of the remaining Northern Song’s loyal generals and officials, he re-established the Song empire in Yingtianfu, the present-day city of Shangqiu in central China’s Henan Province. With significantly reduced territory, this new empire was called the Southern Song Dynasty, which lasted from 1127 to 1279. 

Zhao Gou, now Southern Song’s first emperor Gaozong, was continuously hunted by the Jin, thus he was forced to evade and remain hidden from them. To manage such an unstable situation, he appealed to all forces of Song to fight against the Jin and protect his new regime.

Yue Fei tried several times to persuade emperor Gaozong to fight and take back the lost lands and people. But he was turned down because the emperor feared that the release of his father and elder brothers would threaten his claim to the throne. Eventually, Yue Fei was demoted and finally removed from the imperial army.

At that time, many of Song’s loyal generals and officials still had strong will to fight against the Jin; moreover, most civilians in northern China didn’t want to be ruled by the Jin. Many of them voluntarily organized armies and kept fighting. Yue Fei joined them and gradually established his own army, the Yue Family Army, whose soldiers were carefully trained and strictly disciplined.

The Yue Family Army, along with other loyalist forces, engaged the Jin army and prevented it from advancing by taking advantage of the difficulty they had using their cavalry in the rivers and hills of southern and central China. In the meantime, Yue Fei was able to increase the size of his army and suppress rebellions within the Southern Song territory.

In the year 1133, emperor Gaozong summoned Yue Fei and his eldest son Yue Yun in the Southern Song capital of Lin’an, which is the present-day Hangzhou in east China’s Zhejiang Province. The emperor granted them armor, bows, and arrows, and wrote on a silk banner praising Yue Fei’s loyalty. He also assigned general Niu Gao and others to Yue’s army. It was then that the Yue Family Army began to take shape, with more than 20,000 soldiers.

After emperor Gaozong learned of the death of his father, former emperor Huizong, he began planning to fight the Jin in earnest and retrieve the lost lands as his throne would no longer be contested. He nominated Yue Fei as the chief commander of the Southern Song army. They marched northward, defeated Jin’s main troop, and took back many lost lands, including six military strongholds in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

This was the first time that the Southern Song regime recovered a large area of lost territory. Yue Fei was appointed governor of the Qingyuan Army in present-day south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the highest officer in charge of local civil and military affairs.

However, his attempt to push further north and recover all lost territory was opposed by the peace faction within the imperial court headed by prime minister Qin Hui, who believed that to further wage war would be too costly. Just when the reunification of the Song empire became extremely possible, Yue Fei was summoned back by the emperor. This meant that all their efforts and achievements over the last decade, and all the lands and people they had recovered, would be lost again to their enemy.

Greatly disheartened, Yue retired from the army, and in order to observe the mourning period for his mother, who passed away in 1136, he handed over the military leadership to his subordinate, doing so without permission from the emperor.

Emperor Gaozong used Yue Fei’s success as an important bargaining chip to sign a truce with the Jin in 1138. He agreed to give back all the lands that Song’s armies had won back and offered a great tribute each year, respecting Jin as the sovereign.

Two years after signing the treaty, in the year 1140, Jin reneged on their promise and invaded Song again. Stricken with panic, emperor Gaozong summoned Yue Fei back to lead the Song army. Under the command of Yue, and with the assistance of many volunteer armies in the Jin-controlled northern lands, the Song army kept winning and recovered more and more lost territory.

Just when Yue Fei was threatening to force his way into the Jin capital, emperor Gaozong followed the advice of the peace faction and ordered Yue to return. Yue Fei defied the order at first, but the emperor sent 12 orders in the form of gold plaques in succession to call him back. 

Knowing that the Jin would soon reoccupy the lands he had just recovered, Yue Fei wrote in tears his most celebrated poem Full River Red, which reflected his outrage towards the Jin invaders, as well as his sorrow for the wasted efforts to recoup the lost lands and people.

Famed translator Xu Yuanchong, a professor at Peking University who died at the age of 100 in 2021, had translated Yue’s poem as The River All Red.

Wrath sets on end my hair,

I lean on railings where I see the drizzling rain has ceased.

Raising my eyes towards the skies,

I heave long sighs,

My wrath not yet appeased.

To dust is gone the fame achieved in thirty years;

Like cloud-veiled moon the thousand-mile land disappears.

Should youthful heads in vain turn grey,

We would regret for aye.

Lost our capitals,

What a burning shame!

How can we generals quench our vengeful flame!

Driving our chariots of war,

We’d go to break through our relentless foe.

Valiantly we’d cut off each head;

Laughing, we’d drink the blood they shed.

When we’ve reconquered our lost land,

In triumph would return our army grand.

The Jin also realized that the Southern Song would not be easily defeated, so they were prepared to negotiate a truce on the condition that Yue Fei had to die. Framed by Qin Hui, Yue Fei was put into prison under the guise of betraying the country. He denied the accusation even after a few months of cruel physical torture. Qin Hui and his followers failed to find any shred of evidence to prove their charge.

When asked by officials who felt compassion toward Yue about what crime he had committed, Qin Hui replied that although it wasn’t sure whether there was something that Yue did to betray the country, maybe there was. The phrase “maybe there was” (莫须有mo xu you) has been recorded in the Chinese dictionary as an expression to refer to fabricated charges.

Emperor Gaozong was not a supporter of Yue Fei because the general had defied his orders on several occasions. Therefore, Yue Fei was doomed to be a political victim, being murdered in year 1142 amid accusations of betraying the country that he had dedicated his entire life to protecting.

Twenty years later, emperor Xiaozong ascended the throne to become the second emperor of Southern Song. He is believed to be the most exceptional emperor of the dynasty, demonstrating strong will to recover the lost lands of the empire. In the year 1169, emperor Xiaozong restored Yue Fei’s reputation and posthumously granted him the name Wumu in which wu refers to his military achievements, and mu shows respect.

For their part in Yue Fei’s death, iron-cast statues of Qin Hui, together with his wife and two subordinates, were made to kneel before Yue Fei’s tomb located by the West Lake in Hangzhou.

Since his death, Yue Fei has been widely revered as a national hero, evolving into the epitome of loyalty in Chinese culture. Today, people can still see his courage and vision in the poems and calligraphy works he left behind and feel just how much he sincerely wanted to recover his lands and save his people.

Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Lu Weitao, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.