First of all, since the thirty-second year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (1 162), after Song Xiaozong Emperor Zhao Shen rehabilitated Yue Fei, various portraits and statues of Yue Fei began to spread among the people, among which the most standard portrait was the statues of Yue temples: wearing a red tassel handsome helmet, purple embroidered robe, revealing golden armor with both arms, wearing military boots, making fists with the right hand and pressing the ground with the left hand. In this image, Yue Fei has a melon-shaped face, an upright eyebrow, a handsome face and a heroic spirit. It should be Yue Fei in people's minds for thousands of years.
So, is this the true face of Yue Fei?
At present, the earliest portrait of Yue Fei is Liu Songnian's Four Generals of Zhongxing in the Southern Song Dynasty. There are eight people in the painting, from left to right are Yue Fei's attendants and Yue Fei, Zhang Jun's attendants and Zhang Jun, Han Shizhong and his attendants, Liu Guangshi and his attendants. The second person in the picture is Yue Fei. From the picture, Yue Fei is white, slightly fat, with big ears, a round face, a square scarf on his head, pointed boots on his feet and a light green costume. This is quite different from the current statue of Yue Fei in various Yue temples.
Liu Songnian was born in 1 155, and Yue Fei died in 1 142. His life time is not far from Yue Fei, and some people who have seen Yue Fei are still there, so his portrait should have certain credibility. Ruan Yuan, a Qing Dynasty man, also saw this painting. He said in Volume III of Liu Songnian Song Zhongxing's Essays on Four Commanders in Shiqu: "Yue Fei's face is big and square, his forehead is wide and his eyebrows are sparse, his cheeks are plump, his eyes are round and his nose is upturned, and he is much heavier from his mouth." In addition to these characteristics, what other characteristics does Yue Fei have?
First of all, it is said that Yue Fei has "big eyes but small eyes" (that is, one eye is big and the other is small). 1 14 1 year, the Southern Song Dynasty reached a settlement with Jin. In A.D. 1 142, according to the terms of reconciliation, the State of Jin sent people to send Wei Xianfei and his mother's coffin back to China. On the way, Wei Xianfei once asked his entourage, "Where are the generals with big eyes and small eyes?" The attendant replied, "Yue Fei is dead." Therefore, Yue Fei is a general who is "wide-eyed and small-eyed". This is probably a derogatory term for Yue Fei by Jin Ying's soldiers.
In addition, Yue Fei's height should be around 1.7 meters. This is because 1 124, there was a flood in northern Henan, and the Northern Song Dynasty recruited soldiers from the victims as usual. The first is to measure the height with a marked wooden frame, the second is to measure the agility to see if you can jump and ride a horse, and the last is to measure your eyesight. Those who pass the exam will be assigned to each army according to their height. At that time, all armies had rigid requirements for height: for example, the First Army of Tianwu (infantry) must be five feet eight inches, the Rowen Army (cavalry) must be five feet seven inches, the Shenwei Army (infantry) must be five feet four inches, and the Weiyuan Army (cavalry) must be five feet three inches five. After Yue Fei was admitted to the army, he was assigned to Guangrui Army, a cavalry unit. His height requirement for soldiers is five feet five inches, which is about 169 cm when a Song ruler is equivalent to 30.72 cm today.
In a word, Yue Fei is as tall as Huang Xiaoming, but not as handsome as Huang Xiaoming.
Finally, by the way, according to the inscriptions and imprints on the paintings, The Four Generals of Zhongxing circulated today is not the original work of Liu Songnian, but an earlier copy of Liu's paintings. What is commendable is that this painting has been handed down in an orderly way. As early as the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, it was collected by people and then flowed into the Qing Palace. Emperor Qianlong couldn't put it down and wrote many inscriptions. After the demise of the Qing Dynasty, it was taken out of the palace by Puyi in 1922, exiled to the northeast, and then collected in the National Museum of China. It is a typical cultural relic.