Volumes 4 to 9 of Jintuo Cuibian, "Chronicle of the Prince of E's Journey," are Yue Fei's biography. The first five volumes provide chronological narrative, while the final volume, "Lost Stories," describes Yue Fei's character, moral integrity, and military style. "Lost Stories of Lady Li of Chu" and "Lost Stories of the Sons" briefly profile Yue Fei's second wife, Li Wa, and his five sons. "Revealing the Temple and Posthumous Titles" describes the Song court's rehabilitation and posthumous honoring of Yue Fei. Finally, Yue Ke's autobiography explains the writing process.
Volumes 10 to 19 of "Jintuo Cuibian" are "Ewang Family Collection", a total of ten volumes, which bring together some of Yue Fei's memorials, official documents, poems, inscriptions, etc. that Yue Lin and his son spent decades to collect. Among them, the original copies of seven of them, "Nanjing Presents a Letter of Currency to Tian Wu", "Memorial to Move the Capital", "Memorial on the Feelings of the Enemy", "Memorial to Designate a Successor", "Memorial to Return to the Capital", "Memorial to Leave Jingluo", and "Memorial to Leave Qihuang", have been lost, and only an outline remains.
Volumes 20 to 25, "Calling to Heaven to Defend Against False Defamations," primarily feature Yue Ke's research, drawing upon various sources, to defend Yue Fei. The first volume provides a general narrative, while the last five volumes address the five issues of slander and calumny against Yue Fei, namely, "On the Establishment of the Crown Prince," "On the Huaixi Region," "On the Shanyang Region," "On the Zhang Xian Region," and "On the Succession of the Chu State."
Volumes 26 to 28 are "Tian Ding Lu" and volumes 13 to 16 of "Jintuo Cuibian" are "Tian Ding Bie Lu", totaling seven volumes. They collect documents from the Southern Song Dynasty court on Yue Fei's rehabilitation, posthumous title, posthumous honor, and modification of his posthumous title. Some of them, such as "Zhong Min Posthumous Title Discussion", "Wu Mu Posthumous Title Discussion", "Wu Mu Fuyi", etc., also record Yue Fei's family background and certain historical fragments.
"Continuation of the Jintuo Records of the State of E" (hereinafter referred to as "Continuation of the Jintuo Records"), Volumes 2 to 12, "Records of the Silken Threads", a total of eleven volumes, collected a group of imperial edicts and imperial decrees from the Southern Song court to Yue Fei, reflecting the court's extremely high evaluation of Yue Fei's military achievements and military discipline during his lifetime.
Volumes 17 to 30 of the 14-volume "Records of the Hundred Families' Loyalty" contain written accounts of others praising Yue Fei. They are largely copied from Zhang Ying's five-volume "Collection of the Prince of E," along with Liu Guangzu's three-volume "Stories of the Xiangyang Stone Carvings" and two-volume "Stories of Yang Xuan."
The last four volumes of the Jintuo Xubian include records of Yue Fei's deeds and memorials by Southern Song Dynasty figures such as Huang Yuanzhen, Sun Bu, and Wu Zheng. For example, Sun Di's Biography of Prince E preserves numerous accounts of Yue Fei's early anti-Jin campaigns. Huang Yuanzhen's recounting of his father Huang Zong's observations while serving as Yue Fei's aide reveals many of Yue Fei's valuable qualities.
It is worth mentioning that the two books "Eguo Jintuo Cuibian" and "Eguo Jintuo Xubian" (abbreviated as "Jintuo Cuibian" and "Jintuo Xubian") include the eighty-eight handwritten edicts from Song Gaozong to Yue Fei, memorials, official documents, poems, inscriptions written by Yue Fei, the original documents such as edicts and provincial notes from the Song court to Yue Fei, as well as the records of Yue Fei's deeds by Huang Yuanzhen, Sun Bu, Wu Zheng, Sun Di and others in the Southern Song Dynasty, plus the accounts of Yue Fei's experiences by people in the Southern Song Dynasty. They are all extremely precious original historical materials related to Yue Fei, and are valued by historians who have studied Yue Fei in all dynasties.
Regarding the compilation of the Jintuo Collection and Jintuo Sequel, it's worth noting that these two books weren't entirely extant historical documents kept by private individuals. Instead, after their completion, they were "examined by the imperial court and approved for distribution to the historians." This means they were approved and preserved by the Southern Song court. Therefore, many of the materials contained within them are quite credible, and some were widely referenced by Southern Song historians and later generations. The biographies of Yue Fei included within them (such as "Chronicle of the Prince of E's Travels" in volumes 4 to 9 of the Jintuo Collection) actually hold a similar status to official history.
After reviewing the materials and manuscripts related to Yue Fei submitted by Yue Ke, the Southern Song court handed them over to the History Museum, asking the Southern Song historians to review and correct them, and "they were approved and handed over to the historians." After careful examination, the Southern Song court historians reported their review results to the court.
Zhang Ying, one of the high-ranking historians in the Southern Song court, mentioned in his memorial that "all the matters can be verified. Although the book can be found in "Bianwu", the words come from private sources, and people in later generations may doubt its credibility." Zhang Ying believed that the matters involved in the materials and manuscripts presented by Yue Ke to the Southern Song court could all be verified. Although there was evidence for the book "Bianwu", it was private words, and people in later generations might doubt its credibility.
After being reviewed and revised by the historians of the Southern Song Dynasty, the main copies of the materials and manuscripts related to Yue Fei presented to the court by Yue Ke were kept as documentary historical materials by the Southern Song History Museum.
A few years later, Zhang Ying, a historian of the Southern Song Dynasty, believed that the four generals Yue Fei, Liu Qi, Li Xianzhong and Wei Sheng had all suffered unfortunate fates. In order to let future generations know about their life stories, he wrote a biography for each of them and compiled them into a book called "Biographies of the Four Generals who Migrated South".
After reviewing and revising it, Southern Song historian Zhang Ying edited and polished the biography of Yue Fei submitted by Yue Ke (i.e., Chronicle of the Prince of E's Travels) and remade it into "The Biography of Yue Fei" in "The Biography of the Four Generals Who Fell to the South." Zhang Ying later submitted "The Biography of the Four Generals Who Fell to the South" to the Southern Song court for review and then to the Southern Song History Museum for preservation, for reference by later historians compiling the history of the Southern Song Dynasty.
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