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as a Buddhist monk. The problem of identifying which members of the family are portrayed by images on altars has been complicated by temple keepers having their own personal views of the exact identity of each deity on their altars. At least four of Yang Yeh's other sons are individually revered on altars, with the complete family, usually seven sons, revered in at least four temples, though in two of these there are eight sons, together with Yang Yeh's two young daughters and several of his sons' wives.
Legends recounted by tea-house story-tellers claimed that General Yang Yeh defeated the Mongols near Heng Shan in Shansi early in the Sung dynasty becoming one of the most powerful supporters of the Sung. Later he, together with his heroic sons, tried to save the emperor from the invading hordes, and with his wife chose to die rather than surrender. All but two of their sons died with them. The Fifth and Sixth made their separate ways home after many adventures. After falling in battle fighting the enemies of the Sung, Yang Yeh was awarded the title of The Marshal who Protected the Sung, Sung-pao Yüan-shuai*. His body was recaptured from the enemy, so legend relates, by a valorous captain who had used a secret weapon to defeat them. He caused fire to flow from a pot thereby scorching the hillside and then, having exhumed the general's corpse, he returned to the capital at Kaifeng where it was buried in state. A temple keeper in Kowloon Tsai in Hong Kong claimed that General Yang Yeh was killed by the Tatars who hung his body on a gate tower where, daily, Mongol soldiers fired arrows at it to cause pain to his soul.
A popular opera describes how the Commander-in-Chief of the Sung forces, General Yang Yeh, was encircled by the Tatars and seeing no other way out defied capture by knocking out his own brains on a stone monument dedicated to the loyal Su Wu, the unyielding plenipotentiary of the Han dynasty. The Tatars recovered his remains and honouring his bravery built a mausoleum in the Hung-yang cave, but covertly buried his remains in a secret place elsewhere to avoid the Sung forces taking the corpse back to be buried in the family grave. Meng Liang, a junior officer serving with the Yangs [and possibly now represented by the image of the unidentified deity on the temple altar beside the main altar bearing the images of the Seven, near Taichung] bravely recovered the corpse from the false coffin which, as the Tatars had feared, then was buried back home. However, Yang Yeh's spirit
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as a Buddhist monk. The problem of identifying which members of the family are portrayed by images on altars has been complicated by temple keepers having their own personal views of the exact identity of each deity on their altars. At least four of Yang Yeh's other sons are individually revered on altars, with the complete family, usually seven sons, revered in at least four temples, though in two of these there are eight sons, together with the Yang Yeh's two young daughters and several of his sons' wives.
Legends recounted by tea-house story-tellers claimed that General Yang Yeh defeated the Mongols near Heng Shan in Shansi early in the Sung dynasty becoming one of the most powerful supporters of the Sung. Later he, together with his heroic sons, tried to save the emperor from the invading hordes, and with his wife chose to die rather than surrender. All but two of their sons died with them. The Fifth and Sixth made their separate ways home after many adventures. After falling in battle fighting the enemies of the Sung, Yang Yeh was awarded the title of The Marshal who Protected the Sung, Sung-pao Yüan-shuai *. His body was recaptured from the enemy, so legend relates, by a valorous captain who had used a secret weapon to defeat them. He caused fire to flow from a pot thereby scorching the hillside and then, having exhumed the general's corpse, he returned to the capital at Kaifeng where it was buried in state. A temple keeper in Kowloon Tsai in Hong Kong claimed that General Yang Yeh was killed by the Tatars who hung his body on a gate tower where, daily, Mongol soldiers fired arrows at it to cause pain to his soul
A popular opera describes how the Commander-in-Chief of the Sung forces, General Yang Yeh, was encircled by the Tatars and seeing no other way out defied capture by knocking out his own brains on a stone monument dedicated to the loyal Su Wu, the unyielding plenipotentiary of the Han dynasty. The Tatars recovered his remains and honouring his bravery built a mausoleum in the Hung-yang cave, but covertly buried his remains in a secret place elsewhere to avoid the Sung forces taking the corpse back to be buried in the family grave. Meng Liang, a junior officer serving with the Yangs [and possibly now represented by the image of the unidentified deity on the temple altar beside the main altar bearing the images of the Seven, near Taichung] bravely recovered the corpse from the false coffin which, as the Tatars had feared, then was buried back home. However, Yang Yeh's spirit
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