Mausoleum of General Yue Fei @Hangzhou & the Israelites

I am the person who added the information about the Israelites to Wikipedia. The material comes from a recent book on the translations of three stone inscriptions erected by the Chinese-Jews in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. I added the information to the page before I had a chance to analyze the book itself. I no longer feel the information is accurate.

I am currently writing a 16 page review of the book which shows that the author jumped to too many supported conclusions, misquoted sources, and even based various theories off of mistranslations. The inscriptions referring to Yue’s tattoo are simply comparing the Jew’s loyalty to that of the general. There is not enough evidence within the inscriptions or from outside sources that support Israelites ever served in Yue’s army. The only evidence that the author has is the mention of the tattoo itself. It is very questionable whether Yue Fei ever historically had such a tattoo. For instance, the common story of his mother giving it to him actually comes from a popular folklore novel written during the Qing Dynasty. An earlier Ming Dynasty novel says Yue commissioned a young man in his village to do it. Yue’s official biography in the Yuan Dynasty’s Song Shi (History of the Song) only refers to the tattoo in passing and doesn’t say where or when he got it. There is a good chance the tattoo was an embellishment added to Yue Fei’s family memoir by his grandson Yue Ke out of filial duty to reestablish the general’s heroic image.

Since Wikipedia has a policy against “original research,” I am unable to comment on the erroneous nature of the author’s claims.

I love the pictures by the way.

Jim – I understand, and it’s all very interesting. Thanks for sharing. :)
Please keep us updated if there are further research developments on the topic.

Happy to help.

I actually meant “unsupported” in the first sentence of the second paragraph of my original post.

Jews are known to have served in the Chinese military, but this was during the Yuan Dynasty. The Mongol record dated May-June 1354 reads: “The skilled archers of Ningxia and wealthy Muslims and Jews were called to the capital [of Beijing] to volunteer for military service.” According to one paper I have, the Mongols brought in foreigners, including Jews, to help run their bureaucracy. When the Chinese rebelled against the Mongols during the late Yuan, they are said to have targeted “people with colored eyes.” The author believes this included Jews. An archeological dig in the 1940′s found all sorts of broken Arabic and Persian headstones that had been used as a foundation for a wall in the seaport city of Yangzhou. It is plausible that some of them belonged to Jews who had been buried in that area.

Another thing to point out is that, although beautiful pieces of craftsmanship, those statues of Yue Fei located in his mausoleum are not historically accurate. They are more likely the cultural ideal of what the Chinese believe a heroic general should look like—tall, muscular, handsome, stern continuance, etc. A group portrait painted during the late Song Dynasty called the “Four Generals of Zhongxing” shows Yue Fei as being chubby and clean shaven. For lack of a better example, Yue looks like the fat kid that people were reluctant to choose for their dodge ball team in gym class. This, however, doesn’t detract from his many accomplishments. The portrait was actually painted some 40 or 50 years after his death, but specialists reason the artist may have had access to earlier paintings that are no longer extant.

As I’m sure you can tell, the Chinese Jews and Yue Fei are two of my favorite historical subjects. That is why I initially added the info about the Israelites to the general’s page on Wikipedia.