The Story of Yue Fei

The Story of Yue Fei states that after having Yue Fei, Yue Yun, and Zhang Xian arrested on false charges, Qin and his wife, Lady Wang (Chinese: 王氏), were sitting by the "eastern window", warming themselves by the fire, when he received a letter from the people calling for the release of the general. Qin was worried because, after nearly two months of torture, he could not get Yue Fei to admit the false charges of treason and would eventually have to let him go. However, after a servant girl brought fresh oranges into the room, Lady Wang devised a plan to execute the general. She told Qin to slip an execution notice inside the skin of an orange and send it to the examining judge. This way, the general and his companions would be put to death before the Emperor or Qin himself would have to rescind an open order of execution. This conspiracy became known as the “East-Window Plot”. An anonymous novel was written about this called the Dong Chuang Ji ("Tale of the Eastern Window") during the Ming dynasty.

When asked by General Han Shizhong what crime Yue had committed, Qin Hui replied, "Though it isn't sure whether there is something that he did to betray the dynasty, maybe there is.” The phrase "unneeded" (simplified Chinese: 莫须有; traditional Chinese: 莫須有; pinyin: mò xū yǒu) has entered the Chinese language as an expression to refer to fabricated charges.

Statues of Qin Hui and Lady Wang at the Yue Fei Temple. Visitors traditionally spit on the statues despite measures to protect them as relics.

For their part in Yue Fei's death, iron statues of Qin Hui, Lady Wang, and two of Qin Hui's subordinates, Moqi Xie and Zhang Jun (Chinese: 張俊), were made to kneel before Yue Fei's tomb (located by Hangzhou's West Lake). For centuries, these statues have been cursed, spat and urinated upon by young and old.