As the saying goes, the Northern Song Dynasty lacked generals, and the Southern Song Dynasty lacked good ministers. At the turn of the Southern Song Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty, four famous generals appeared, who took on the responsibility of saving the country from danger. The four famous generals were Han Shizhong, Liu Guangshi, Zhang Jun, and Yue Fei. Among them, Yue Fei was the most active on the Battlefield of Song and Jin, and received the most praise. He played a mainstay role in the preservation of half of the Southern Song Dynasty, and is still admired by future generations. However, such a national hero who has been passed down for thousands of years, his true appearance is not known. It wasn't until recently that the National Museum made Yue Fei's portrait public that we could see what he once looked like.
Yue Fei's early military career
Yue Fei was born in 1103 AD in Tangyin County, Henan Province. At that time, it was the last year of the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song, and the shortcomings of the entire Northern Song Dynasty had begun to appear, and there was no practical solution in the imperial court. Yue Fei was born at the bottom of society, he witnessed the suffering of the people firsthand, and wanted to do his part for the people and the imperial court through what he had learned in his life. In order to defend his family and resist the invasion of the Jin, Yue Fei joined the army when he was a teenager.
From 1128 to 1141, the army under Yue Fei's command gradually grew, and also absorbed the wandering rebels in Hebei and many displaced people who had no place to live. After Yue Fei's own leadership and the encouragement of many victories, his men began to integrate into a Yue family army with Yue Fei as the core, defending the family and defending the country, and the number of people was as high as tens of thousands. It became the mainstay of the resistance to the invasion of the Jin people from the south.
Yue Jiajun led by Yue Fei has a distinctive feature, that is, the laws and regulations in the army are very clear, and no matter who violates it, it must be dealt with according to military discipline. Under the leadership of Yue Fei, the Yue family army, which had such strict provisions and guarantees, became stronger and stronger, and finally the Jin people did not dare to confront it. The most powerful Tiefu Tu soldier in the Jin Dynasty once commented on Yue Fei: It is easy to shake the mountain, and it is difficult to shake the Yue family's army. In their hearts, the Yue family army was like a big mountain, unattainable and impossible to defeat. In the dozens of battles between the two sides back and forth, they did not take advantage of it.
The death of Yue Fei in history
Just as the so-called yin and yang poles, the prosperity pole will decline, after reaching the peak, it will inevitably face a downward slope, in 1140 AD, Yue Fei still led his soldiers in the Northern Expedition. No one ever thought that after the prosperity of the world, there will be chaos, and after the peak, there must be a low. At that time, the Yue family army had already defeated the Jin army one after another, reaching the town of Zhuxian, which was less than 30 miles away from Fengfeng, and was about to recover the old capital of Kaifeng and complete the military alien in political geography.
Just when the Yue family's army was invincible and about to retake Kaifeng City, the imperial court officials in the southern city of Lin'an, led by Qin Ju, began to ask Emperor Gaozong of Song for orders for Yue Fei to withdraw. In their hearts, they just wanted to make peace and secretly live, and they didn't want Yue Fei's bulging power to upset the balance between Song and Jin.
They believed that if the two sides upset this balance and led to the destruction of either the Jin Kingdom or the Song Kingdom, then their wealth and glory would be reduced to smoke. Only when the Song Kingdom and the Jin Kingdom are in this state of equilibrium, and no one can help the other, they will get the most benefits. If Yue Fei's Northern Expedition at that time succeeded in retaking Kaifeng City, it would indicate a complete defeat in the Southern Invasion War of the Jin people. Jin Guo's trust in Qin Juniper would no longer be like it is today. Therefore, Qin Ju at that time was very frightened and asked Emperor Gaozong of Song for his life overnight.
After Qin Ju explained the pros and cons to Emperor Gaozong of Song, the imperial court issued 12 gold medals urging Yue Fei to return to Hangzhou. Some people in later generations described the golden token from heaven, and the general moved the three armies with tears. Yue Fei was able to recover the lost land and restore the Song Dynasty's rule in the north, but he was hindered by the court's disputes and rebellious villains, which eventually made the efforts of the 10 years of the Anti-Jin War to nothing. In order to be able to maintain the balance between the Song and Jin sides and negotiate peace with the Jin people. Qin Ju threw Yue Fei into prison on trumped-up charges and began to collect all kinds of evidence to frame Yue Fei, just to get the Jin people to join him.
After Yue Fei was imprisoned, Qin Ju soon instigated the generals around Yue Fei to start framing Yue Fei as a witness, and finally executed him because Yue Fei had rebellious intentions. When Yue Fei was dying, he just shouted loudly, the sky is clear, the sky is clear. It was not until the Jin people invaded the south again that the Song Dynasty monarchs remembered Yue Fei's goodness, and after Emperor Xiaozong of Song succeeded to the throne, the following was Yue Fei Plain Zhaoxue, and he was named the King of E. In order to respect and commemorate Yue Fei, posterity called Yue Fei the tomb of his mother-in-law. Until later, the main storyline in Mr. Jin Yong's fan fiction The Legend of the Eagle Shooter hero revolves around Wu Mu's suicide note.
Yue Fei's daily life
When Yue Fei was alive, his life was very simple, he saw that the national court was in danger, and even if he was in a high position, he did not make a special. He obviously had the conditions to enjoy a better life, but he usually wore coarse cloth clothes. Once, his wife wore a silk robe, and after being bumped into by Yue Fei, Yue Fei told him bitterly about the great righteousness of the country, and under Yue Fei's persuasion, his wife also lived a life of poverty with him.
Another time Yue Fei ate at his subordinates' home. Yue Fei saw that his subordinates did not even have a meat dish during the festival, so he hurried to the streets of Lin'an to buy meat dishes and send them over. Later, his men wanted to dump these leftovers, and Yue Fei packed them up and took them home as his own supper. Because of his remarkable merits and outstanding military achievements, the state and the imperial court had to build mansions for him, but these were rejected by Yue Fei one by one, and his reason was that the country was still in a time of waste and waiting to be rebuilt. Tens of millions of people in the Lianghe region of Henan and Hebei are in dire straits, and they cannot enjoy themselves without restoring their former territory.
After the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, the authority of the army was further improved, and the southern Song court rewarded the army very high, but yue Fei received gold and silver jewelry after each victory in battle, he rewarded his soldiers and those who died. Even Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun felt that Yue Fei's life was too bitter, he was neither lustful nor greedy for money, nor did he buy land and family property for his children and grandchildren, nor did he know what he wanted to live for the rest of his life. But it is such a person who is upright and poor, and who is dedicated to serving the country and the people, and in the end he is framed to death.
Controversy over Yue Fei's appearance
The controversy over Yue Fei's appearance has a long history, and in everyone's mind, Yue Fei is a hero in the world. Moreover, he is a man who can write and be brave and resourceful, and his appearance must be heroic and extraordinary. Many ordinary people speculate that Yue Fei should do the same according to the idols in Yue Fei's temple. However, because there was no photography technology and cameras in that era, we could not see Yue Fei's lineup, and we could only glimpse one or two of the paintings left at that time.
Just when Yue Fei was framed by Qin Juniper, many people in the Southern Song Dynasty spontaneously commemorated Yue Fei in the future, and in order to make Yue Fei's reputation more popular, many famous painters painted portraits of Yue Fei. The most famous portrait of Yue Fei is hidden in the southern Song Dynasty court paintings. This painting was made by the famous painter Liu Songnian of the Southern Song Dynasty, and its name is "The Four Generals of Zhongxing". The four people in the portrait are Yue Fei and Zhang Jun, as well as their retinues.
From the portrait, we can see that Yue Fei is tall, his face is relatively white, and he is slightly fat. Yue Fei in the portrait did not have a beard. If you don't know his past achievements, at first glance, no one will think that he is a famous warrior, but more like a white-faced student. But even so, when we visited Yue Fei in the temple, we still felt that he was very temperamental.
Today the portrait is in the collection of our National Museum. During the New Year's Festival, it will be displayed in public. But in fact, it didn't matter whether Yue Fei looked ugly or handsome. He is our national soul and the spiritual representative of our country for thousands of years.
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