The Yue Army Tally
The great-grandfather of Ye Yun Zhou and Ye Yunshang was one of the trusted generals under Yue Yun, son of the famous anti-Jin general Wu Muwang, Yue Fei.
It is said that Emperor Gaozong issued twelve gold plaques recalling him, and Yue Fei, loyal to the end, willingly sacrificed himself — but lamented that the anti-Jin cause remained unfinished, fearing the empire would be helpless if his military power fell into the wrong hands. So he dispersed the main force of the Yue Army and hid its treasure in the mountains, entrusting an iron tally to his eldest son Yue Yun — a token of command authority, the kind that had to be matched against its other half before troops would obey an order — hoping that one day the tally could command the old troops again and carry on the mission of protecting the country.
Yue Yun, unexpectedly, died before his father. In his final crisis, he entrusted the tally to a subordinate, instructing him to hide in the martial world and wait for a descendant of Wu Muwang to come claim it. That subordinate — the Ye family's own ancestor — concealed his identity and lived in the mountains, and for this the family even gave up their own surname, taking the name "Ye Yun" to honor the lord their ancestor had served; even the family's heirloom sword, "Listening Cloud," means "obeying Yue Yun."
A branch that broke away: Yeli Chahan
Not every descendant of the old Yue Army kept that vow. The ancestors of Li Yuanqi (born Yeli Chahan), also descended from the same Yue Army veterans, lost heart after Yue Fei's death and, seeking revenge, defected to Western Xia. That branch later rose to become the Left Enforcer of the Blissful Sect. Badly wounded after defeating Qingcheng's Zhao Kui during The Battle of Ji Le Teachings, he brought a token to the Ye family hoping to be recognized as kin — but was refused, and could only return the family's heirloom sword before recovering from his wounds near their home.
While recovering, he urged the Ye family to let go of the obsession that had bound three generations: Yue Fei was long dead, killed by the very court he'd served; the Ye family had already given the Song more than enough loyalty, and blind devotion was not loyalty but folly — no one should let an old vow imprison their descendants forever. But the family refused his wish to return to his roots, and it was this final rejection that hardened his heart. He took the name "Li Yuanqi" — "Li," from the Western Xia royal surname, and "Yuanqi," meaning, quite literally, to sever kinship and abandon the past.
The secret comes to light — and Ye Yunshang's own account
Jianghu has long told it this way: the secret, kept for nearly a hundred years, eventually came to light, and the treasure and tally brought disaster. Fearing the tally would fall into the wrong hands, Ye Yunshang's parents branded its mark onto their beloved daughter's back as proof, then destroyed the tally itself.
But according to Ye Yunshang herself, that "treasure" story isn't accurate. What actually destroyed her family was a letter her father wrote in a moment of panic, at the height of the fighting during the Baifengdong Rebellion. With four provincial garrisons unable to put down the rebellion and the Central Plains in turmoil, her father, heartsick, secretly petitioned the court, denouncing his own kinsman Li Yuanqi in hopes of ruining his reputation and turning the people against him. The letter even called the family "unworthy descendants who have shamed the emperor's grace" — an attempt to clear the Ye name.
It backfired completely. Reading the letter only convinced the emperor that the whole family were traitors in league with the rebel. Unable to catch Li Yuanqi himself, the court sent troops straight for the Ye household instead, intending to hold the family hostage as leverage against him. The soldiers gave no quarter and no explanation. Her father, refusing to accept the disgrace, resisted and was killed; her mother, grief-stricken, dashed her head against a pillar to follow him in death; Ye Yunshang herself took a strike that severed her meridians, leaving her near death and lingering between life and death for over a decade after. Ye Yun Zhou and Ye Yunshang were left orphans. Fearing the affair would make him look like a tyrant who destroyed a loyal family, the emperor went to great lengths to cover it up afterward — which, in a bitter irony, is exactly what preserved the Ye family's reputation as loyal subjects.
"Foolish loyalty is the real reason my family was destroyed — it has nothing to do with any 'Yue King's treasure.'" That is Ye Yunshang's own verdict on the affair.
Li Yuanqi's atonement
That very night, Li Yuanqi slipped out of camp alone and found Ye Yunshang already near death. He asked her first whether she wanted to live — if he saved her, her parents' injustice would go unavenged; if she chose to die with her honor intact, he swore he would one day force the foolish emperor to kneel at Yue Fei's grave and her parents' graves and beg forgiveness. Still a child, Ye Yunshang answered that she would rather die to prove her family's innocence. Li Yuanqi, far from praising her, scolded her for not learning his lesson at all — and force-fed her the painstakingly refined "Nine Springs Pill" regardless. Life, he told her, mattered more than an abstract notion of loyalty; no one of her generation should have to carry someone else's old obsession.
The pill cost him dearly. It was said to not only bring the dying back from the brink but grant ten years of internal power — had he taken it himself, combining it with his mastery of the Heaven-Swallowing Mirror and the Nine Cycles of Reincarnation technique, Tang Buyi and the others might not have been able to stop him. He spent that once-in-a-lifetime chance on a niece he claimed was of no consequence to him at all.
Later, homeless, the Ye siblings traveled south to Hunan to seek shelter with Li Yuanqi — only to be turned away without so much as a meeting. In truth, he feared implicating them further and wanted to preserve the Ye family's name as loyal subjects.
In the end, Li Yuanqi fell to Tang Buyi and four other heroes, dying in the closing days of the Baifengdong Rebellion.
Notes
- The mark branded on Ye Yunshang's back is still there today. "Ye" is not the family's original surname — the Ye family gave up their birth surname, which was Hua.[1]
- See also Li Yuanqi, the Baifengdong Rebellion, and The Battle of Ji Le Teachings.
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