In 1141 AD, Yue Fei led the Yue family army to break the main force of the Jin army and killed all the way to the town of Zhuxian, only forty-five miles away from Kaifeng Province in Tokyo.
Seeing that the old capital was about to be recovered, Yue Fei was very excited, and he said to his subordinates in a loud voice: "Go straight to the Huanglong Mansion and drink with the kings."
Who expected that at this moment, the twelve gold medals sent by Lin'an City, Emperor Gaozong Zhao Zhao strictly ordered Yue Fei to withdraw. Yue Fei did not dare to disobey the emperor's orders, so he had to return to the dynasty.
After Yue Fei withdrew, the Jin army soon reoccupied a large area of land around Henan. When Yue Fei heard the news, he could only look up at the sky and sigh: "Ten years have passed, and it will be ruined."
But the bad news waiting for Yue Fei is far more than that. After returning to Lin'an, the lords and factions led by Qin Ju stepped up their persecution of Yue Fei. On January 27, 1142, a holy decree was sent to the Dali Temple prison where Yue Fei was imprisoned, and it read: Yue Fei is specially given death!
That cold night was the darkest night in the history of the Chinese nation. A generation of national heroes, who died unjustly. The wind and bones of the nation were broken by adultery, the patriots who protected the border and the people were obliterated by the rulers, and even the last bones of the heroes faced the dismal end of the exposed wilderness.
Fortunately, at this time, a small person stood up and made a decision to change Yue Fei's ending. So, who is this little man? What did he do?
01 The righteous deeds of the little people
The dark scene of Yue Fei's tragic death was all seen by Kui Shun, the little jailer in Lin'an.
As an unknown little jailer, Kui Shun was powerless to change the course of history and could not save Yue Fei's life, but he knew very well that the hero of the nation should not lie in the cold prison and decay.
Therefore, Kui Shun risked his life to secretly carry Yue Fei's body, and a person climbed over the city wall to evade the guards, carrying Yue Fei out of Hangzhou City and burying him next to the Jiuqu Cong Shrine outside the Qiantang Gate.
In order to facilitate the identification of the remains in the future, he also tied the jade ring that Yue Fei once wore around the waist of the body, and planted two orange trees in front of Yue Fei's grave as a marker.
After doing all this, Kui Shun hid this matter deep in his heart and did not tell anyone about this secret again. It was not until his death that he told his son about Yue Fei's buried bones, and asked his son to protect Yue Fei's remains well and wait for the day when Yue Fei would be rehabilitated in the future.
That's twenty years.
02 Aoyama has the honor of burying loyal bones
In 1162, Emperor Xiaozong of Song ascended the throne. Coincidentally, a year before the new King's Landing Dynasty, the Jin soldiers suddenly invaded the south in a big way, which made the main war faction in the dynasty look up again, and also made Zhao Yun rethink the Northern Expedition plan.
Perhaps not resentful of the Jin army's repeated and repeated offenses, Zhao Xuan finally decided to go north again and regain the Central Plains. When the news came, the generals of the main battle faction could not help but discuss privately: "The emperor is going to go on the Northern Expedition again, and if Yue Fei is here, I am afraid that Wang Shi will have already broken through the Helan Mountain Pass, and where will he need to work hard to go on an expedition?" ”
The discussion of the generals made Emperor Xiaozong a little uneasy, and in order to boost morale, Zhao Xuan decided to rehabilitate Yue Fei. He ordered the search for Yue Fei's remains, and Yue Fei was "posthumously rehabilitated and buried with ceremonies."
In fact, after Yue Fei was wronged and died, many loyal subordinates and upright officials also repeatedly took justice for Yue Fei. For example, after Qin Jun's illness and death in 1155 AD, Zhang Xiaoxiang and others wanted to write a letter to replace Yue Fei Zhaoxue's unjust case, but unfortunately, wan Qianjie, the prime minister of the DPRK at that time, was a party of Qin Ju, and when he saw That Zhang Xiaoxiang and others wanted to overturn the case for Yue Fei, he immediately told Zhao Zhao: "Gu He, once recorded, will doubt the world's heart, and cannot." ”
Under the guise of losing the hearts and minds of the people in the world, Wan Qianbi finally persuaded Zhao Zhuo to dismiss the idea of overturning Yue Fei's case, but Yue Fei's old department was not dead hearted, and when Yu shizhong Wang Che inspected Ezhou, the local Yue Fei old departments jointly signed a petition and demanded that Yue Fei be rehabilitated.
According to historical records, when this group of iron-beaten men talked about the grievances of the commander Yue Fei, the whole audience "cried like thunder." Wang Che's persuasion was useless, and he was busy saying that he would report the invitation of the people to the imperial court truthfully, and the generals still sobbed.
The "rehabilitation" that the generals had been waiting for day and night finally became a reality in the era of Filial Piety. What is lamentable is that there are no shortage of loyal and dead soldiers under Yue Fei's subordinates, and there are also many officials in the DPRK who sympathize with Yue Fei, but when the day of "Yue Fei's rehabilitation" really came, no one in the Manchu Dynasty knew where Yue Fei's bones were scattered.
The reason for all this is not that people are reluctant to bury Yue Fei, but that under the terrible high pressure at that time, it was too difficult to collect Yue Fei's remains.
Above the court, Qin Ju and Qin Xi's father and son took advantage of the opportunity to master the history museum to wantonly obliterate the exploits of Yue Fei and the Yue family's army, bent on making Yue Fei "disappear out of thin air" from the annals of history, and how could it leave people with the opportunity to bury Yue Fei.
And the invisible clouds outside the hall, there is also the secret suppression of the big boss Gaozong behind the scenes. Since Yue Fei was hand-picked by Emperor Gaozong to die, the burial of Yue Fei's remains was undoubtedly a "singing to the stage" with the emperor, which was likely to lead to the disaster of killing himself and even affecting the entire family.
After Yue Fei was imprisoned, many officials in the DPRK and China had already been convicted of Yue Fei. He Zhu, one of the chief judges of Yue Fei's case, because he firmly believed that Yue Fei was wronged, constantly appealed for Yue Fei and opposed peace, and finally demeaned Huizhou. Li Ruopu and He Yanyou of Dali Temple also believed that Yue Fei was innocent and tried their best to argue with Wan Qianbi, and they were tragically deposed. Zong Zhengqing Zhao Shi guaranteed Yue Fei's innocence with his entire family, and was also impeached by Wan Qianbi and dismissed from Lin'an. There were also scribes Zhihuan, Liu Yunsheng, Fan Chengzhi, and others, all of whom were convicted of writing to Yue Fei for their grievances, Liu Yunsheng was executed at the Xia Dali Temple, and ZhiHuan and Fan Cheng all died in exile later.
In the bloody rain and wind, the Lin'an jailer Kui Shun walked into history. He willingly risked the burial of Yue Fei's remains, and cleverly hid Yue Fei's buried bones with a wordless monument, and finally succeeded in preserving Yue Fei's bones.
The flowers bloom in two, one on each side. After the imperial court rehabilitated Yue Fei, it wanted to rebury Yue Fei, but could not find Yue Fei's remains. In desperation, the imperial court had to offer a reward of 500 silver and collect clues from the people of the world for Yue Fei's remains.
The imperial list of rewards spread throughout Kyushu, and when Kui Shun's son heard about it, he immediately ran to the official palace and informed the imperial court of the location where Yue Fei had buried his bones.
A generation of national heroes has finally waited for his destination. The imperial court sent people to remove Yue Fei's remains and then bury them in the Qixialing Mountains of the West Lake, which is now the "Tomb of king Yue of Song".
Although in the main history, there is only a simple record of Kui Shun: "King Yue E died, and the jailer Kui Shun bore his body, and was buried in the Jiuqu Cong Ancestral Hall", Kui Shun's righteous deeds completely changed Yue Fei's ending. If there were no Kui Shun father and son, when we visited the West Lake today, we might have seen Yue Fei's crown tomb.
More importantly, on the night yue fei was killed, when yue fei was known to all over the government and the public that Yue Fei had been wronged, only Kui Shun resolutely came to his aid. Perhaps in the eyes of historians, Kui Shun is just a small person, who does not understand the scheming of the heart, nor does he understand the official ecology of life and death.
But the little people understand the loyalty in their hearts, and they also understand that when the hero who defends the family and the country is in distress, even if he tries his best, he must preserve the last dignity of the big hero.
References: History of song, New Biography of Yue Fei, Jin Tuo, ed.
Author: Our special guest author Zhu Yingyuejiang