In the accumulation of thousands of years of history, "national hero" has become a familiar word. Among the national heroes who have been famous for thousands of years, Yue Fei is probably the most well-known one. People pay attention to his achievements, to his bumpy career, and to the four words on his back. However, the "fine loyalty to the country" that we are familiar with is actually a kind of misinformation.
In the Yuewang Temple in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, the four big characters "Loyalty to the Country" are particularly eye-catching, which makes some tourists feel very confused: since childhood, I know that Yue Fei is "loyal to the country", how did it become "loyal"? Could it be a typo? It turned out that the tattoo on Yue Fei's back was indeed "loyal to the country". In the "Biography of He Zhu" in the "History of Song", when He Zhu interrogated Yue Fei, he saw that there were four big characters on his back, "Loyalty to the country", and he went deep into the skin.
So, why did the "loyal service to the country" recorded in the canonical history become the "fine loyalty to the country" that we now know? According to some historical records about Yue Fei at present, the writing of "serving the country with all loyalty" as "jing loyal to the country" should be related to Emperor Gaozong of Song.
In the war against the invasion of jin soldiers, Yue Fei defeated the jin soldiers continuously and made outstanding achievements. In order to honor Yue Fei and to stimulate the morale of the Southern Song Dynasty's anti-Jin generals, Emperor Gaozong of Song gave Yue Fei four big characters of "Jingzhong Yue Fei" and asked his subordinates to make a banner with the words "Jingzhong Yue Fei" written on it for Yue Fei. Later, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was misunderstood again before it became what it is today.