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 heroYue Fei. However, the commonly accepted authorship of that particular poem has been disputed.
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]
^ 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.
^ ab 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