精忠報國 or 盡忠報國 (Yue Fei's tattoo)

Originally Posted by greatboi

I've seen different spellings for Yue Fei's tattoo.

jìn zhōng bào guó; literally "serve the country with the utmost loyalty"


Which one is the correct (traditional) Chinese spelling? What's exactly the difference between the two?

精忠報國 or 盡忠報國

Personally, I would say 盡. 盡 is the traditional version of 尽, which is regularly used in conjunction with 力 to form 尽力 meaning try your hardest. If the translation means 'serve the country with UTMOST loyalty', then the 盡 corresponds with the 'utmost'.

Originally Posted by jobjed

Personally, I would say 盡. 盡 is the traditional version of 尽, which is regularly used in conjunction with 力 to form 尽力 meaning try your hardest. If the translation means 'serve the country with UTMOST loyalty', then the 盡 corresponds with the 'utmost'.

What does the other character mean?

Originally Posted by greatboi

What does the other character mean?

Actually, I did a little digging and I found out that while both makes sense, it's the 精 that was spoken by Yue Fei. 精忠报国 means serving the country with utmost 精神, or spirit/motivation, kind of hard to translate directly into English. 尽忠 and 精忠 mean different things but when used in conjunction with the phrase, both makes sense and means almost the same thing.

Though both sentences make sense, I believe the "精忠報國" is Yue Fei's while the other is not. To me, although both sentences have similar word and pronunciation but have huge difference in meaning. 盡忠 may means with all the possible patriot and 精忠 might means with the utmost spirit. The later sounds more serious and suits the case of Yue Fei. If you look at the second photo more clearly, it was signed by Chiang Ching Kuo. Just my two cents.

I believe jobjeb got it right, and that's the "direct" cause of the differences between thoudsand years ago Yue Fei's tatoo and modern time people's artistic slogan.

The "indirect" cause, is that in Chinese culture the offspring (the modern people) CAN NOT claim, or self-dramatizing, or "artisticly expressing the commitment" - exactly like the ancestry (the older generation, despite 100 generations older or 1 generation older).

It can not be exactly the same, it's considered an offense to the ancestry if you do so. It's like self-dramatizing that you are as good as the ancestor's greatness (even you are good, you can not yelling about it). I suppose modern USA president would look George Washington in high respect that in no condition (especially in front of a TV) LOOK LIKE he is comparing himself to George Washington - That's the culture, universally.

Now, a modern general (or in this case, chief commander of 国民革命军，国军 Nationist Revolutionary Army, 蒋经国 Jiang Jingguo), trying to leave his mark to motivating his troops, in no condition it shall looks like he is comparing himself to a great historical figure Yue Fei (Yue Fei's mother actually), so the artistic expression, shall not be exactly like Yue Fei's - You can quote exactly Yue Fei's mark 精忠報國 in a book or a classroom, but since you are now making your own mark, you are not considered quoting if you write the exactly same 精忠報國， but to self-comparing to Yue Fei (and that's reputation suicide in Chinese culture), the modern people have to play the trick to chaning one character and remains almost the same meaning - thus the “盡忠報國”.


The other situation is, you don't say exactly "the other guy" said. I found interesting when I in Singapore, during election period, there is this expression that the government shall "serve the people" in great care. While "Serve the people" looks alright in English - in Chinese, “为人民服务” is like CCP's exclusive slogan and it is damn sure no Singaporean party can afford to LOOKS LIKE CCP. So at Chinese language news paper, they use the term: 为民众服务.

避讳 (avoid the subtle indication) is universal culture.

Thank you Jobjed, RedSword and Steelbird for clarifying.
The reason why I'm asking is because I just got a tattoo of 精忠報國.
Then I realized that there were two different spellings and because wikipedia and various other sources depicted the 盡 character more often.

Originally Posted by jobjed

Actually, I did a little digging and I found out that while both makes sense, it's the 精 that was spoken by Yue Fei. 精忠报国 means serving the country with utmost 精神, or spirit/motivation, kind of hard to translate directly into English. 尽忠 and 精忠 mean different things but when used in conjunction with the phrase, both makes sense and means almost the same thing.

Where can I find these sources?

Actually, from what I've read, the original term is "尽忠报国", while the term "精忠报国" dates from the ming/qing dynasties.

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Yue Fei's tattoo is most likely a myth. It has been said that no one in his era mentioned anything about his loyalty tattoo. Even his own great grandson did not mention anything about a tattoo in his biography of his great grandfather. Since this tattoo has been considered a major symbol of his resolute loyalty to his nation, his great grandson would have mentioned it if he had one. The earliest mention of Yue Fei's tattoo was in Yuan dynasty (at least 100-200 years after his death), which described the tattoo as 尽忠报国. Then in the Ming dynasty, the tattoo became 赤心救国. The earliest mention of 精忠报国 came in 1552, almost half a millennium after his death (he was killed in 1142).

So none of the versions of the tattoo was modern invention. Jiang Jingguo simply chose the earliest version. And all of the versions seem to be fictional.

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Originally Posted by vesicles

Yue Fei's tattoo is most likely a myth. It has been said that no one in his era mentioned anything about his loyalty tattoo. Even his own great grandson did not mention anything about a tattoo in his biography of his great grandfather. Since this tattoo has been considered a major symbol of his resolute loyalty to his nation, his great grandson would have mentioned it if he had one. The earliest mention of Yue Fei's tattoo was in Yuan dynasty (at least 100-200 years after his death), which described the tattoo as 尽忠报国. Then in the Ming dynasty, the tattoo became 赤心救国. The earliest mention of 精忠报国 came in 1552, almost half a millennium after his death (he was killed in 1142).

So none of the versions of the tattoo was modern invention. Jiang Jingguo simply chose the earliest version. And all of the versions seem to be fictional.

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Hmmm, lots of conflicting theories.

Regardless of the tattoo being a myth, thats a different discussion.

Why would the spelling change from time to time? Is it because like RedSword mentioned that people do not want to "quote" others out of respect?

And do all spelling have basically the same meaning?

Also most sources seem to be wikipedia type of sources. None of them are "official" or "academic".

More pics of the "精" spelling:





How ever, this pic seems to indicate that Yue Fei signed this phrase and it has the "盡 " spelling.

Originally Posted by greatboi

Hmmm, lots of conflicting theories.

Regardless of the tattoo being a myth, thats a different discussion.

Well, I think whether it is a myth is very important in this discussion. If it is a myth, that means there is no absolutely correct version of the tattoo since the tattoo did not exist in the 1st place. If that's the case, the discussion becomes how later generations come up with the various versions, instead of figuring out what the original was.

Originally Posted by greatboi

Why would the spelling change from time to time? Is it because like RedSword mentioned that people do not want to "quote" others out of respect?

And do all spelling have basically the same meaning?

Most of the mentioning of the tattoo came from fictional novels in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties when this type of novels were very popular. Almost all the famous ancient Chinese novels were written in this time, the 3 kingdom, Journey to the West, Shui Hu, Sui Tang, etc. So it all depended on how the authors understood the phrase. Some author might think "尽" could represent Yue Fei's loyalty better while others might think "精" would be better. It's all about personal taste and interpretation. It's like the famous story of a poet spending a lot of time contemplating whether to use "to push" or to use "to knock" in one of his poem. He finally decided on one word while someone else in a similar situation might pick the other word.

I don't think it's because people not wanting to quote others. There have been many many writings about Yue Fei, only 2-3 versions of the tattoo exist. This means many authors have been quoting others. Additionally, Those carvings shown in the original post of this thread were all phrases that had been quoted by many for centuries and were NOT invented by the writers of the carving. So in other words, they were all quoting others. Again, it's only the matter of personal taste that dictated which version they picked.

Originally Posted by greatboi

Also most sources seem to be wikipedia type of sources. None of them are "official" or "academic".

Yes, most sources are Wiki type. But many of those have citations of the original articles and list names of the books, authors, time, places, etc, such as this:
曾孙岳珂所著的《金陀革编》也没有记录,
元人所编的《宋史本传》，书云：“初命何铸鞠之，飞裂裳，以背示铸，有‘尽忠报国’四大字，深 入肤理”,
明代成化年间创作的《精忠记》，也仅提及岳飞背脊有“赤心救国”字样,
嘉靖三十一年（1552年）熊大本的《武穆精忠传》记有岳飞请工匠在背上深刺“精忠报国”四字 ,
明末，由李梅草创，冯梦龙改定的《精忠旗传奇》，内称：“史言飞背有‘精忠报国’四大字，系飞令张宪所刺” ,
“岳母刺字”则最早见于清乾隆年间，杭州钱彩评《精忠说岳》，该书第22回，回目“结义盟王佐假名，刺精忠 岳母训子”.
Citing original work, giving names of the authors, title of the work, time when it was written, as well as what was written in these books, this is as academic as you can get. The discussion in 百度百科 is very academic, in a sense that it had a hypothesis at the beginning and presented evidence to support the hypothesis. No hear-say, no guesses, no imagining of any sort... Only solid evidence with names, time, titles.

However, in no way I am saying that the hypothesis in 百度百科 is correct. Simply, their point is the most convincing with the most solid evidence. If you disagree with this particular hypothesis, that is perfect fine. The only thing is you have to present your evidence to support your hypothesis. In fact, I would expect many such evidence exist. Otherwise, we would not be talking about this supposed tattoo. Discrediting the evidence presented in 百度百科 is NOT the way to do it.

Also, compared to those discussions based on hear-say and guesses, any source is better than none.

Also, 有学者认为，此时的“精忠报国”四字是受宋高宗御赐“精忠岳飞”4字的误导
This might be why people use "精"...

Originally Posted by greatboi

More pics of the "精" spelling:





How ever, this pic seems to indicate that Yue Fei signed this phrase and it has the "盡 " spelling.

I don't think these photos can be used to argue anything. No one knows who wrote these. Was any of them knowledgeable in Chinese history? You and I can paint one version or another on the wall and that means nothing as to which version is correct.

The most laughable one would be the last where "Yur Fei" signed the writing. If anything, it was Yue's mother who came up with it. How could Yue Fei stole his mother's idea?

OK, new theory...

尽忠报国 originated much earlier before Sui/Tang dynasties (~500 A.D.) in 北史·颜之仪传: “公等备受朝恩，当尽忠报国。” And 北史 was written by 李延寿 in the Tang dynasty.

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the earliest mention of 精忠报国 was found in 《精忠旗传奇》 which was written in Ming dynasty and was thought to be misled by the title of “精忠岳飞” given to Yue Fei by the Song emperor. 有学者认为，此时的“精忠报国”四字是受宋高宗御赐“精忠岳飞”4字的误导


So 尽忠报国 is NOT limited to Yue Fei at all since it came out almost 400-500 years before Yue Fei. It has been used as 成語 to describe being absolutely loyal to one's nation since ~500 A.D. So it is a general term. The author of 《宋史·岳飞传》used 尽忠报国 because it was available to him and had been in general use in his time. It can be understood as Yue's mother put the already existing term on her son's back to remind him to be loyal to his nation. In other word, she "quoted" a well-known existing 成語.

Later author 李梅草创，冯梦龙改定的《精忠旗传奇》changed it to ‘精忠报国’ because Yue Fei had the title of “精忠岳飞” given to him by the Song emperor. So They thought 精忠 would be more appropriate for Yue Fei. And looking at the name of the novel, 《精忠旗传奇》, which describes Yue Fei with the title of “精忠岳飞”, it makes perfect sense for the authors to go with “精忠报国”. Everything ties together to make a unified theme: 精忠.

SOOOO, all in all, when you see a painting/carving of 尽忠报国, it may NOT be intended to link to Yue Fei at all. It may be just a general attempt to encourage people to be loyal to their nation. And 精忠报国 may be uniquely linked to Yue Fei because the term was specifically created for Yue Fei by later admirers of Yue Fei, based on one of his titles.

So, if the tattooing could happen, it would most likely be 尽忠报国 since this term was already in general use at the time of Yue Fei. His mother was educated but not nearly talented enough to come up with her own 成語. So using an existing 成語 would make sense. Also, the chances of his mother coming up with 精忠报国 coinciding with the Song emperor coming up with the title of 精忠岳飞 was simply tooooooo slim since Yue's tattoo was not known to anyone until the very end, days before his execution.

Originally Posted by vesicles

OK, new theory...


SOOOO, all in all, when you see a painting/carving of 尽忠报国, it may NOT be intended to link to Yue Fei at all. It may be just a general attempt to encourage people to be loyal to their nation. And 精忠报国 may be uniquely linked to Yue Fei because the term was specifically created for Yue Fei by later admirers of Yue Fei, based on one of his titles.

So, if the tattooing could happen, it would most likely be 尽忠报国 since this term was already in general use at the time of Yue Fei. His mother was educated but not nearly talented enough to come up with her own 成語. So using an existing 成語 would make sense. Also, the chances of his mother coming up with 精忠报国 coinciding with the Song emperor coming up with the title of 精忠岳飞 was simply tooooooo slim since Yue's tattoo was not known to anyone until the very end, days before his execution.

Yeah your right. If the tattoo is a myth, then this is about which phrase relates to Yue Fei and that's exactly what I wanted to know.
I mean nobody can prove if he had a tattoo, but I like the story!

Anyways, thanks for the research. I appreciate it, 'cause I can't read Chinese. This clears a lot up.

btw what does “精忠岳飞” mean in English?