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Yüeh Fei (1103–41) and China's Heritage of Loyalty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

James T. C. Liu
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Loyalty is at present an agonizing question to many concerned Chinese who face either divisive circumstances or imposition of particular political lines. Few topics could be more relevant than their heritage of loyalty and its implications today. Never a simple matter in politics, loyalty often produced great tensions and even ironical tragedies that filled the pages in Chinese history. As early as the Shang period, according to the ancient legend, an official most loyal to the state was killed by the displeased last king for not being loyal to him. In the more recent period of the Ming, for example, Yü Chien (1398–1457) suffered the same fate. Having defended Peking and thus saved the realm during the emperor's brief captivity, he was later executed by the same emperor who returned and eventually retook the throne. Of all these ironical tragedies—loyal men condemned as disloyal—the case of Yüeh Fei has been highly significant. He was for centuries a much mythologized and even deified symbol of loyalty. With superstitious beliefs swept away by modern waves, many Chinese still identify his image with nationalism, anti-imperialistic stands, and attachment to the fatherland. This essay will analyze the following: pertinent points in Yüeh Fei's career, the neo-Confucian theory and practice of loyalty in political science terms, and his evolving myths in intellectual history with regard to both the elite heritage and the mass heritage.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , February 1972 , pp. 291 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1972

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References

1 Wilhelm, Hellmut, “From Myth to Myth: The case of Yüeh Fei's biography,” in Confucian Pertonalities (1962), ed. Wright, A. F. and Twitchett, D. C.Google Scholar; reproduced in Confucianism and Chinese Civilization (1964), ed. Wright, A. F., 211–226Google Scholar. A more recent study is Kaplan, Edward H., “Yüch Fei and the Founding of the Southern Sung” (Dissertation, University of Iowa, 1970)Google Scholar. For the aspect of social class, see Feuerwerker, Albert, History in Communist China (1968)Google Scholar; cf. his Approaches to Modern Chinese History (1967) and Harrison, James P., The Communists and Chinese Peasant Rebellions, 1969.Google Scholar

2 For details and Chinese sources, see Liu Tzu-chien (Liu, James T. C.), “Yüeh Fei,” Chung-kuohsüeh-jen (Chinese Scholars), 2 (1970), 43–58Google Scholar, with English abstract. (In some works the name is spelled Yo Fei.)

3 James T. C. Liu, “Southern Sung Political Institutions,” mss. submitted to the projected Cambridge History of China.

4 Haeger, John W., “Between North and South: The Lake Rebellion in Hunan,” Journal of Asian Studies, 28 (1969), 469–488.Google Scholar

5 cf. Liu, James T. C., Ou-yang Hsiu, an eleventh-century neo-Confucianist (1967), 60Google Scholar; and the standard work by Professor Charles O. Hucker on the Ming censorial system.

6 Chʻeng-tʻao, Hsia, “Yüeh Fei ‘Man-chiang-hung’ tzʻu Kʻao-pien,” Chūgoku ho, Kyoto, 10 (1962), 56–63Google Scholar. See also an article by Professor Jao Tsung-yi in Pan tai hsüeh-pao, No. 2 (University of Malaya, 1963).

7 Pussey, James R., Wu Han: Attacking the Present through the Past (1969).Google Scholar

8 James T. C. Liu, “Southern Sung Political Institutions,” mss. submitted to the projected Cambridge History of China.

9 Chang P'o-hsing comp., Hsü Chin-ssu lu (1962 reprint), 7: 140.