Descendents Memorialize Their Hero Ancestor in Hangzhou

March 30， 2010 saw over 300 descendents of Yue Fei gather at Yue Fei Memorial on the West Lake in Hangzhou and conduct a memorial service in commemoration of the 907th anniversary of the birth of Yue Fei， a national hero who was executed after he was groundlessly accused of treason. The descendents at the ceremony came from 17 provinces， municipalities and autonomous regions and they were not even the same generation descendents. They represented about 1.81 million descendants of General Yue Fei ranging from the 28th generation descendents to the 39th generation at home and abroad.

The descendents all wore a red sash bearing the hero’s famous “Serve My Fatherland with Unreserved Loyalty.” After a memorial oration was recited， they stepped slowly around the tomb， each placing a yellow chrysanthemum at the tomb.

Yue Bangjie， a 29th generation descendent， says that his family had guarded the tomb before the 1950s for generations. Now nearly 80 years old， Yue says that the family holds memorial ceremony twice a year， one on 15th day of the second month which is the hero’s birthday， and the other on 29th of the 12th month which is the day he was executed， both being on the lunar calendar.

This memorial ceremony is the grandest over the past 60 years. Before the family ceremony， the city authorities conducted a public memorial ceremony.

The Yue Fei Memorial is the largest temple in China in commemoration of the great hero. In 1141， Yue Fei was killed at Fengbo Pavilion in Hangzhou. A jailor stole the body and buried him secretly. Twenty-one years later， the court rehabilitated the hero， reburied him and his son Yue Yun， and had the temple built on the West Lake. The temple underwent refurbishment projects through dynasties. Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) visited the memorial several times during his southbound inspection tours. The Yue family today still uses a middle name list presumably bestowed by Emperor Qianlong (in feudal China， large families used such a list of middle names to distinguish different generation descendents so that family descendants could recognize each other and know seniorities no matter where they were and no matter how far away they lived from each other).

Professor Gong Yanming with Zhejiang University is a specialist on the history of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and president of Yue Fei Research Association. He says that the descendents of Yue Fei now number about 1.81 million at home and abroad， ranging from the 28th generation to the 39th generation. There are about 30，000 descendents of Yue Fei in Korea.

The largest settlements of the descendants of Yue Fei are now in Tangying， his home county in Henan Province， in Jiujiang， Jiangxi Province where Yue Fei’s mother was buried， and in Chongqing and Beijing. In 2009， about 30 representatives from Korea attended the memorial ceremonies held in Hangzhou and Jiujiang.

There are about 2，000 descendents of Yue Fei in Taiwan. Yue Chaojun， a 28th-generation descendant， notes that the descendants in Taiwan are descendants of Yue Lin， the third son of Yue Fei. Taiwan is now home to about 10 Yue Fei memorials. Yue Chaojun has visited his remote relatives in Taiwan several times.

Yue Chaojun says that we hold memorial services not merely out of family emotions. We want to uphold our common ancestor’s loyalty to the country and duty to the family. His biggest hope is that descendants from the two sides of the straits hold a memorial ceremony together soon. □