CH'IN KUEI

born 1090, Chiang-ning, Kiangsu province, China died 1155, Hangchow Pinyin Qin Gui minister of the Sung dynasty (960-1279) who led a peace party that opposed continued prosecution of a war to regain former Chinese territory in the North. He is remembered as a traitor, however, in Chinese history. After Juchen tribes had occupied the North and captured the Sung emperor in 1127, a Sung prince, later known to history as Kao Tsung (reigned 1127-62), reestablished the dynasty in the South-sometimes referred to as the Southern Sung (1126-1279). Later, when the patriotic general Yeh Fei attempted to reconquer the occupied northern territory, Ch'in Kuei argued that such a campaign would be too costly and had the recalcitrant Yeh Fei executed. In 1141 a peace treaty was signed.