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Oddities, Misconceptions, and Facts About the Middle Ages that Made it So Delightfully Strange

Khalid Elhassan April 6, 2022 36 min

Middle Ages Facts - Disposal of Black Death victims — Disposal of Black Death victims. Science

19. A Chinese Hero Who Got Anything but His Just Rewards

Middle Ages Facts - Yue Fei learns archery — Yue Fei learns archery. Wikimedia

Middle Ages Chinese General Yue Fei (1103 – 1142) was one of his country’s greatest and most formidable military leaders. In China, he is considered to be the epitome of patriotism and loyal service to the nation, and is viewed today as one of the greatest national folk heroes of Chinese history. During his lifetime, however, Yue Fei was treated quite shabbily by his government. For his heroism, self-sacrifice, and devotion to duty, he received shocking ingratitude from his political masters.

Yue Fei was born into a poor peasant family, and joined the Song Dynasty’s military in 1122. From an early age, he possessed great power and near-supernatural strength, which made him a formidable warrior. He rose to prominence amidst a war against the nomadic Jurchen tribes, who invaded and overran northern China in 1126. The Jurchens captured the Song capital of Kaifeng, along with the emperor and his father. The emperor’s brother fled to southern China, where he reestablished the dynasty, known thereafter as the Southern Song, and was declared the Gaozong Emperor.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.