Man Jiang Hong

Statue of Yue Fei at the Yue Fei Mausoleum in Hangzhou. The four characters on the banner above his head reads, "return my rivers and mountains", one of the themes espoused in his poem.

Mǎn Jīang Hóng (simplified Chinese: 满江红; traditional Chinese: 滿江紅, literally means All are red in the River) is the title of a set of lyrical poems sharing the same pattern. If unspecified, it most often refers to the one normally attributed to legendary Song Dynasty general and Chinese national hero Yue Fei. However, the commonly accepted authorship of that particular poem has been disputed.

The poem

Traditional Chinese	Hanyu Pinyin	English translation
怒髮衝冠，憑欄處，瀟瀟雨歇。	Nù fà chōng guān, píng lán chù, xiāo xiāo yǔ xiè.	My wrath bristles through my helmet, the rain stops as I stand by the rain;
抬望眼，仰天長嘯，壯懷激烈。	Tái wàng yǎn, yǎng Tiān cháng xiào, zhuàng huái jì liè.	I look up towards the sky and let loose a passionate roar.
三十功名塵與土，八千里路雲和月。	Sān shì gōng míng chén yǔ tǔ, bà qīan lǐ lù yún hé yuè.	At age thirty my deeds are nothing but dust, my journey has taken me over eight thousand li[1]
莫等閒 白了少年頭，空悲切。	Mò děng xián bò liǎo shào nián toú, kōng bēi qiè.	So do not sit by idly, for young men will grow old in regret.
靖康恥，猶未雪；	Jīng kāng chǐ, yóu wèi xuè;	The Humiliation of Jing Kang[2] still lingers,
臣子恨，何時滅？	Chén zǐ hèn, hé shí miè?	When will the pain of his subjects ever end?
駕長車踏破 賀蘭山缺！	Jià cháng jū tà pò Hèlán shān què!	Let us ride our chariots through the Helan Pass,
壯志飢餐胡虜肉，笑談渴飲匈奴血。	Zhuàng zhì jī cān Hú lǔ rù, xiào tán kè yǐn Xiōng nú xuè.	There we shall feast and drink barbarian flesh and blood.
待從頭收拾舊山河，朝天闕。	Daì cóng tóu shōu shì jiù shān hé, cháo Tiān què.	Let us begin anew to recover our old empire[3], before paying tribute to the Emperor.

Authorship controversy

The common belief is that Yue wrote the poem in 1133 at the age of 30 after the capture of Emperors Qinzong and Huizong by Jurchen invaders (known as the "Humiliation of Jingkang" as mentioned in the poem) alongside Emperor Gaozong's retreat to modern-day Hangzhou in 1127 and the subsequent formation of the Southern Song Dynasty.

However, Princeton University History Professor James T.C. Liu states that Yue's version was actually written by a different person during the early 16th century.^[4] The poem was not included in the collected works of Yue Fei compiled by Yue's grandson, the poet and historian, Yue Ke (岳柯, 1183 - post 1234). And it was never mentioned in any major works written prior to the Ming Dynasty. The section that states the author's wish "to stamp down the Helan Pass" is what led scholars to this conclusion. Helan Pass was in the land of Western Xia, which was not a military target of Yue's armies. Prof. Liu suggests the "real author of the poem was probably Chao K’uan who engraved it on a tablet at Yueh Fei’s tomb in 1502, in order to express the patriotic sentiments which were running high at that time, about four years after General Wang Yueh had scored a victory over the Oirats near the Ho-lan Pass in Inner Mongolia."^[4]

Notes

1. ^ a li (ancient Chinese measurement of distance) is about a half of a kilometre or a 1/3 of a mile.
2. ^ this is in reference to the shame of the capture of Kaifeng and Emperor Qinzong in the Jingkang Incident in 1127.
3. ^ In 1141 the Song signed the humiliating Treaty of Shaoxing that forced the Song Dynasty to renounce all claims to all lands north of the Huai river. In other words, the Chinese were humiliated into becoming a tributary of the Jurchens.
4. ^ ^{a b} James T. C. Liu. "Yueh Fei (1103-41) and China's Heritage of Loyalty." The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 31, No. 2 (Feb., 1972), pp. 291-297

See also

• (English) Manjiang Hong translation
• (Chinese) Manjiang Hong rm download (among others)