| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 歷史學研究所 === 105 === Qin Kuai（秦檜） is often referred as an evil official in Chinese history. In fact, it remains question whether his negative image as perceived by most people nowadays can truly reflect his real actions, which led to the research question of this thesis. Through studying the evaluations on Qin Kuai in the Southern Song dynasty, this thesis tries to explore how political factors influenced historic records.
In the early Southern Song period, Qin Kuai enjoyed reputation for his loyalty to the Song emperor. When the Jurchen troops occupied Kaifeng, Qin Kuai suggested the Jurchen leaders to maintain the Chao family’s imperial status. As a consequence of that event, Qin Kuai has been perceived as a loyal Song official, but he was arrested to the Jurchen territory, along with the Song emperors. Three years later, in 1130, Qin Kuai returned to the Song court, and received quick promotions from Emperor Gaozong, although some officials questioned that his return was an intentional design by Jurchen leaders. Receiving the support from Kaozong, Qin Kuai advocated a peaceful negotiation with the Jurchen. The two countries finally reached agreement in 1141, and Qin Kuai became the main figure who made the Song return to peace. To reward his contributions, Emperor Gaozong let Qin Kuai control the government until his death in 1155.
In 1161, the Jurchen army invaded the Song, which proved the unreliability of peaceful treatment, so the bellicose officials of Southern Song began to criticize Qin Kuai’s policy. Under this circumstance, Qin Kuai''s evaluation turned to the other sided. Although Emperor Xiaozong remained peaceful relationship with the Jurchen, his intention to recover the northern China helped to maintain the bellicose opinions in the court. The scholar of Neo-Confucianism especially criticized that the peace treaty as causing people’s ignorance to the nation’s revanchism and destructed the moral principles of Confucianism.
In the early years of Emperor Ningzong era, Han Tuozhou（韓侂冑）controlled the court and planned to launch campaign against the Jurchen. The bellicose officials attempted to demote Qin Kuai’s title of nobility and changed his posthumous name. Those were all done with the strong purpose to stimulate people’s feeling to correlate with the war and the attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the peace’s treaty.Not only that, those bellicose officials also created a loyalty image of Yue Fei（岳飛）and aimed to build the image of Qin Kuai’s as a traitor.
However, after the defeat of the Northern invasion in Kaixi era, Qin Kuai’s title of nobility and posthumous name were restored. This fact indicates that the change of political policies directy affected Qin Kuai’s evaluation and image. In the Emperor Lizong era, the Southern Song’s scholars and officials often referred a book name as Nanqian Lu（南遷錄）to support the argument that Qin Kuai was perceived as a “spy” who betrayed the interests of the nation. The bellicose officials slandered Qin Kuai that he was the agent of the Jin leaders and accused him that the peaceful negotiation was his pathway to betray the nation which aimed to demonstrate that the peace treatment was detrimental to the future of their state. At the same time, it also destroyed legitimacy of the effort to reach agreement with their northern rivals. As the result, the change of the evaluations on Qin Kuai in the Southern Song dynasty highly depended on various political factors.
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