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General Yue Fei

1684 novel by Qian Cai

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ15925801 ↗
Source-derived summary

General Yue Fei (Chinese: 說岳全傳) is a Chinese historical novel written by Qian Cai in the Qing dynasty. Consisting of 80 chapters, the first 61 chapters detail the life and adventures of Yue Fei, while the last 19 concern the exploits of Yue Fei's son Yue Lei after Yue Fei's unjust death.

Description

The author Qian Cai (錢彩) lived sometime during the reigns of the Kangxi and Yongzheng (1661–1735) emperors of the Qing dynasty. A dating symbol in its preface points either to the year 1684 or to 1744. It was banned during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. There are two main versions of this novel. The original one had 80 chapters. There was an illustrated edition of this version published in 1912. The other version also had 80 chapters and was published during the reign of the Tongzhi Emperor (1861–1875).

Some people mistakenly take this novel to be historical fact when it is purely fiction.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “General Yue Fei” is 1684 novel by Qian Cai. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through General, novel and Qian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1661, 1735, 1684, 1744—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, General, novel and Qian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1684 novel by Qian Cai” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15925801. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1661, 1735, 1684 and 1744.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “General Yue Fei”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow General Yue Fei primary sources, General Yue Fei archive and General research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “General Yue Fei”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “General Yue Fei” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.