Tomb of Qin Hui

Tomb of Qin Hui

The Tomb of Qin Hui is a cultural tourism attraction.

Not far from Niushou Mountain, by the Yangtze River, lies an unmarked “tomb of infamy,” which is the burial site of the notoriously infamous Qin Hui, the treacherous prime minister of the early Southern Song Dynasty. Qin Hui lived in Jiankang for generations and was granted the title of “Duke of Jiankang” by Emperor Gaozong of Song. He was buried in Muniuting, Helong Town, in the southwestern suburbs of Nanjing. At that time, his tomb had a “towering stele standing without a single character inscribed,” reportedly because no one was willing to compose an inscription for him. In the eleventh year of the Chenghua era of the Ming Dynasty (1485), Qin Hui’s tomb was robbed, and the robbers “seized a huge amount of gold and silver objects.” After being captured, the local officials intentionally “reduced their punishment out of hatred for Qin Hui.”

Descendants of Qin Hui who lived near his tomb were ashamed to bear the Qin surname and all changed it to Xu, because the character “Qin” has three people at the top, while the character “Xu” has two people on the side and one person above—also three people, with the same number of strokes. Qin Hui’s former residence was originally located in Qin Zhuangyuan Jing near the Confucius Temple in the southern part of the city (named so because both Qin Hui and his son had once achieved the title of Zhuangyuan, or top imperial scholar). However, due to Qin Hui’s notoriously disgraceful character, locals were ashamed to mention his family name, and thus the place came to be called simply “Zhuangyuan Jing” (Scholar’s Quarter).

Qin Hui (1090–1155), a powerful treacherous official of China’s Southern Song Dynasty, styled himself Huizhi and was a native of Jiangning (now Nanjing, Jiangsu Province). In the fifth year of the Zhenghe era (1115) during the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song, he passed the imperial examination and rose to the position of Censor-in-Chief. He once advocated resisting the Jin invaders and opposed ceding territory for peace. After the Jin army captured Kaifeng and sought to establish Zhang Bangchang as emperor, Qin Hui submitted a memorial proposing the enthronement of another member of the Song imperial clan. As a result, he was captured and taken north by the Jin forces, where he soon surrendered and actively promoted peace negotiations at the Jin court. He was released and returned to the Southern Song in the fourth year of the Jianyan era (1130). Trusted by Emperor Gaozong of Song, Qin Hui rose to the position of chancellor. However, he was dismissed from his post after proposing the policy of “southerners return south, northerners return north”... More details about Qin Hui++