Qín Huì 秦檜 (1090–1155), zì Huìzhī 會之. Native of Jiāngníng 江寧 (mod. Nánjīng). Jìnshì of Zhènghé 5 (1115). The most controversial chief councillor of the Southern Sòng, dominating the court from his return from Jīn captivity in 1130 until his death in 1155. Architect of the 1141 Shàoxīng peace settlement with the Jīn, which fixed the SòngJīn boundary at the Huái river, made the Sòng emperor a tributary vassal of the Jīn emperor, and required the execution of 岳飛 Yuè Fēi (1142) — the act for which Qín Huì has been universally execrated in Chinese historiography. Held the post of chief councillor for nearly two decades, presided over the Shàoxīng zhèngzhì àn 紹興政治案 proscriptions of recovery-faction officials, and was given by Gāozōng the unprecedented hereditary title Shēnwáng 申王 — later stripped under Xiàozōng and the recovery-faction rehabilitation. His son 秦熺 Qín Xī rose to high office on his father’s coat-tails. Standard historiographic verdict from the Sòng shǐ through the dàoxué school treats Qín Huì as the paradigm “jiānchén” (treacherous minister). Modern Western scholarship (Hartman, Tao Jing-shen, Levine) has somewhat complicated this picture by treating the Shàoxīng peace as the only realistic option given Sòng military and fiscal constraints, without absolving Qín of the execution of Yuè Fēi.