Yangjiajiang Legend
01 · Historical Records
The Yang family generals legend is a heroic family legend based on the deeds of the Northern Song general Yang Ye and his household, who fought loyally and bravely against the Liao, elaborated and embellished by the people over a long period. The Mu Guiying legends of the Yanshan area of Fangshan, Beijing, take the love between mother and son as their theme and unfold around Mu Guiying's campaigns, the rearing of her child and her longing for her kin, among which such legends as The Nursing Stone, The Child-Rearing Valley and The Son-Gazing Terrace are especially precious.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Yang family generals legend shows the group-portrait of a heroic family. At the moment of foreign invasion and national peril the Yang family stepped forward before a strong enemy and fought a bloody battle, their fierce, strong and self-sacrificing heroism displaying the unyielding national spirit of the sons and daughters of China. As a part of the Yang family generals legend, the Mu Guiying legend expresses the joys and sorrows and the loves and hates of a woman long tested on the battlefield and conveys the deep love of the broad masses for the beautiful and brave heroine Mu Guiying. Through several hundred years from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing the legend has circulated widely in opera, storytelling, historical romance and narrative-singing, shaping such flesh-and-blood heroic images as Yang Ye, She Taijun, Yang the Sixth Lord and Mu Guiying and lodging the people's reverence for the spirit of loyal and brave service to the country and resistance to foreign aggression.
The Nursing Stone
A Mu Guiying legend on the theme of motherly love reflecting Liao and Song social life.
The Child-Rearing Valley
A Mu Guiying legend on the theme of the love between mother and son.
The Son-Gazing Terrace
A Mu Guiying legend on the theme of motherly love.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Mu Guiying legends of the Yanshan area of Fangshan are closely linked with the local hills, rivers, villages and place names, their characters sharply drawn and their language concise and plain, with distinctive regional features and a broad folk transmission.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Yangjiajiang Legend · Yangjiajiang Legend.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Yang family generals (Mu Guiying) legend has important historical and cultural value and is at the same time rich in ideological and educational significance. Among them the legends on the theme of motherly love, such as The Nursing Stone, The Child-Rearing Valley and The Son-Gazing Terrace, are especially precious; they reflect the true face of social life in the Liao and Song periods and have a broad popular character and folk transmission, being an outstanding expression of the local traditional folk culture with very high academic research value in sociology, ethnology and other fields. As modernisation quickens people's ideas change drastically, the transmitters dwindle and the cultural space of the legend's circulation shrinks, so that the transmission of the Mu Guiying legend cannot be viewed optimistically and protection must be strengthened in good time. The Mu Guiying legends of the Yanshan area of Fangshan take the love between mother and son as their core, plain and moving in plot, a distinctive branch of the Yang family generals legend.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。