Lu Xiufu
Last chancellor of the Southern Song (1236-1279)
Biography
Lu Xiufu (1236-1279) was the last chancellor of the Southern Song. Born in the same year as Wen Tianxiang, he passed the civil service examination in the same year as well, and the two men's lives ran side by side to the dynasty's final day.
When the capital fell in 1276, Lu Xiufu joined the court in exile that carried the young princes south along the coast. Ships replaced palaces and islands replaced cities, but he insisted that the court keep its lessons and ceremonies, teaching the child emperor from the classics every day even on the water. When the young emperor Duanzong died on the flight, Lu Xiufu helped place his even younger brother Zhao Bing on the throne and held the shrinking court together.
In March 1279 the Yuan fleet cornered the last Song fleet at Yamen. When the battle was lost, Lu Xiufu refused to let the eight-year-old emperor be captured. He put on his court robes, took the boy on his back, and leapt into the sea. It is said that many officials, soldiers, and families followed them into the water, and that for days afterward the sea was covered with the dead.
In Korea's Joseon dynasty and in China alike, later scholars honored Lu Xiufu as the model of a minister who shared his country's fate to the very end. His leap at Yamen became one of the most retold scenes in East Asian history, a story of loyalty kept even when nothing could be saved.