Qin Hui, Nationalism, and the Endurance of Hate

Qin Hui (1091-1155) was a government minister and important political figure of the Southern Song Dynasty. The "Southern Song" is what we call the ongoing Song Dynasty after they had lost northern China to a tribe of steppes nomads called the Jurchen. The leaders of the Jurchen, called in China the Jin Dynasty, were bent on subjugating all of China to their rule, leading to a long conflict we call the Jin-Song Wars.

(Incidentally the need of the technologically more sophisticated Song to fight off the more martial Jin led to major advances in gunpowder weapons, especially rocketry.)

Anyway there was a long period in which China was divided between a Han-ruled half and a barbarian-ruled half. The leadership of the Han-led Song realm was divided between a faction that sought accommodation with the Jurchens, for example by paying tribute, and a faction that wanted to fight to the death.

Qin Hui

Enter Qin Hui. According to a long, nearly contemporary narrative of suspect neutrality, he was captured by the Jin but later returned to the Song court, claiming a miraculous escape. There he became a leader of the peace party, which led his enemies to insist that he was a traitor and that the Jin had allowed his escape.

Yue Fei, from a Song Dynasty Scroll

One of his opponents was a general named Yue Fei, who was, wikipedia informs us, a "national heroic person."  Qin Hui outmaneuvered Yue Fei and negotiated a peace treaty with the Jin that required the Song emperor to accept a subservient status toward the Jurchens.

Yue was imprisoned, but even there his recognized status as a heroic fighter made him dangerous to his enemies, so Qin Hui arranged for his trial and execution on charges of treason. Love this detail:

When asked by General Han Shizhong what crime Yue had committed, Qin Hui replied, "Though it isn't sure whether there is something that he did to betray the dynasty, maybe there is.” The phrase "maybe there is" (simplified Chinese: 莫须有; traditional Chinese: 莫須有; pinyin: mò xū yǒu) has entered the Chinese language as an expression to refer to fabricated charges.

Qin Hui died not long afterward, still in power.

When a new emperor came to the throne he pardoned his predeccssor's enemies, including Yue Fei, and the general was rapidly enshrined as a Chinese hero. A grand tomb was built for him, and iron statues of Yue Fei, his wife, and two of his subordinates were made to grovel before the tomb. It became traditional for people to spit on the statues and slap their faces.

And there they still are, more or less, since the statues have been stolen and replaced many times; most recently they disappeared during the Cultural Revolution, and new ones were installed in 1979. And to this day people still slap them and spit on them.

I find all of this fascinating because of the enduring patterns it represents. Nationalists always see those who compromise with outsiders as traitors and honor those who fought to the death; you see this, for example, in Poland, where noblemen who cooperated with the Russians are today villified, even if they were working effectively within the imperial system to make conditions better in Poland. Stalwart military men are usually the heroes, their enemies backstairs schemers who do them in via slanderous rumor, preferably in alliance with wicked women.

(And in another ancient trope, the emperor who lost northern China to the Jurchens is remembered as having "excessive interest in the arts.")

There is a strain within humanity that prefers brave defeat to effective compromise, that wants things to be clear and simple and hates those who work with subtlety and caution, that villifies softness and venerates bold killers. We deserve to be bold and free and strong and victorious, and we should fight to force others to honor us; those who accept subordination over destruction are traitors and deserve to be spit on for eternity.