Nearly 10,000 descendants of Song general Yue Fei in Anhui
June 13, 2014 Leave a comment
Nearly 10,000 descendants of Song general Yue Fei in Anhui
Staff Reporter
2014-06-10
Around 200 descendants of Yue Fei pay their respects to the Song general in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province. (Photo/CNS)
Nearly 10,000 descendants of Yue Fei, a famous military general during the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279 CE), are reportedly still living in Anhui province, reports the local Anhui News.
Descendants of the general found their roots after three updates of their genealogy, twice in 1948 and the third in 2009. Data from a library in Shanghai showed the 14th generation of the Yue family had moved to Anhui from Jiangxi province at the end of Yuan dynasty (1271-1368 CE) and the beginning of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 CE). Their offspring founded a branch in Hefei, the provincial capital, and has convened with the Yue family branch of more than 70 in the country every year since.
Yue Fuyi, a 70-year-old man who is of the 31st generation, recalls that misbehaving family members were brought to the family shrine by their householders, where the members were punished or even put to death according to the degree of their violations. A wooden collar was installed on the shrine. Offenders’ heads were fastened into the device, preventing them from standing or kneeling completely.
Since the general was framed and persecuted by Qin Hui, a Song dynasty chancellor, the family’s male members were not allowed to marry anyone surnamed Qin until 1949. The family’s genealogy chart showed that hardly any of its members broke the rule.
The four characters “Jin Zhong Bao Guo” (serve the country with utmost loyalty), a line for which the general was famous, were said to be written on Yue Fei’s back by his mother, who used it to encourage him to serve the country loyally and ward off enticements from traitors. Yue later tattooed the characters on his back.
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