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Biography

What follows is the legend of Nie Zheng as recounted in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian.

Legend

Nie Zheng was originally from a small town called Zhi (軹; within modern-day Jiyuan, Henan), but he fled to the State of Qi with his mother and elder sister to escape reprisals after he committed a murder. There, he took on the vocation of a butcher.

A long time passed until one day Yan Zhongzi (嚴仲子), an official of Puyang who served Marquess Ai of Han, ran afoul of the Han chancellor Xialei (俠累). Fearing that he would be executed, Zhongzi fled Han to roam the other states in search of help eliminating his rival back home. When he arrived in Qi, the locals shared rumours that Nie Zheng was a courageous knight who was hiding among butchers to elude some vendetta.

So Zhongzi went to Nie Zheng's residence and knocked at the door to make his request. Turned away several times, he resorted to appealing directly to Nie Zheng's mother instead with wine. As the vibe turned jubilant from alcohol, he brought out a copious sum of gold as a gift of blessings and respect to her. Nie Zheng was startled by the exuberant offer yet firmly refused it even while thanking him. When Zhongzi adamantly persisted, Nie Zheng explained, "I am fortunate to have a mom though our family is poor. I moved in here and became a dog butcher so that night and day I am able to scrape up victuals to take care of my mother. I can provide for my loved one sufficiently, and I do not dare to adopt your gifts.".

At this, Zhongzi moved aside from others' earshot, so as to tell Nie Zheng this:

"I have grievances [awaiting recompense], and I have travelled across numerous princely states. Having arrived in Qi, lowly as I am I happened to hear of your considerable sense of justice. Thus I thought to forward this gold to you for the sake of your honour's grain expenses, so that I might become your respectful friend. How could I dare to have any further hopes or requests?"

Whereupon Nie Zheng replied, "That is why I lowered my ambitions and humiliated myself to live in the market slums as a butcher, merely wishing to take care of my mom. As long as mom is here, I, Zheng, cannot yet dare to commit my life to someone else." Still, Zhongzi fervently continued to offer accommodations, but Nie Zheng could not be swayed to accept the gift. In the end, the official-in-exile exceeded all decorum between host and guest and had to leave.

A long time passed, and eventually Nie Zheng's mother died. Once she had been buried and he had taken off his mourning clothes, Nie Zheng said to himself:

"Alas! I am but a man of the slums who wields a knife to butcher meat. And yet Yan Zhongzi, a minister of the nobles, made light of travelling a thousand li and condescended his station to make my friendship. My reasons for treating him the way I did was too shallow. I do not yet have any great deeds to my name, yet Yan Zhongzi offered a hundred gold to bless my mother with long life. Though I refused to accept it, it nevertheless demonstrated how deeply he knows me. The virtuous man, incited into but a trifling grievance, put his heartfelt trust into someone from such a remote place as me—how can I be content leaving this with nothing but silence? Besides, back then when he needed me, I could only tend to mom. Now that mom's time in this world has ended, I should apply myself to a friend who truly understands me."

Thereupon, he headed west to Puyang. Meeting Yan Zhongzi, he explained, "Back then, the reason why I would not entreat you was only because my mom was still here. Today, my mother's time in this world has unfortunately ended. Who was it that you wished to take revenge on? Please allow me to undertake this matter!"

Yan Zhongzi laid it out:

"My vendetta is against the Han chancellor Xialei. Xialei is also the paternal uncle of the Han ruler. His clansmen are tremendous in number; the troops guarding his residence even more so. I wished to dispatch someone to assassinate him but have been unsuccessful in the end. On this day, you have fortunately not forsaken me. Please bolster your mission with my elite cavalrymen as your wingmen."

But Nie Zheng declined the reinforcement, explaining:

"The distance the chancellor will travel between Han and Wey is not that long, and the chancellor we presently plan to kill is also the ruler's relative. Under these circumstances, we cannot have a lot of people. With a lot of people, we would not be able to avoid an accident. When an accident occurs, word will leak out. Word leaking out means Han rousing the enmity of the entire nation against you. Then how would you possibly avoid peril?"

Thus while thanking the cavalrymen, he departed to conduct the mission alone.

Wielding a sword into Han, Nie Zheng arrived before Xialei's estate, where his query was seated inside, protected by numerous soldiers and their halberds. The assailant charged straight inside, making a beeline up a flight of stairs to Xialei and stabbed him to death. Chaos broke out everywhere as his guards retaliated. Nie Zheng single-handedly cut down scores of enemies, all while screaming ferociously. At the end of the ordeal, he shredded flabs of his own skin, gashed his own eyes, and butchered out his own entrails, whereupon he summarily died.

The Han government took Nie Zheng's body, exposed it out at the market, and offered money for his identification, yet no one knew who he was. The government then broadened their search by sending out an announcement that anyone who could name the killer of Chancellor Xialei would be awarded with a thousand gold. A long time passed, and still, no one could come forward with any information.

Nie Zheng's elder sister, Nie Rong (聶榮), heard that someone had assassinated the chancellor of Han and that the whole nation, failing to find out either the killer's surname or given name, had displayed his corpse to the public and was offering a thousand gold for his identification. She thought to herself tearfully, "Could he be my little brother? Alas, Yan Zhongzi knows my brother!" Rousing herself, she journeyed to the capital of Han. At the market, discovering with horror that the deceased was truly none other than her brother, Nie Rong threw herself on his corpse and cried in agony. She wailed out loud, "It's Nie Zheng from a place known as Zhi Deep Well Village (軹深井里)!" All the passersby around her said, "This person brutalized our nation's chancellor. His Majesty has offered a thousand gold as a reward for his full name. Has the lady not heard? Why would you dare to come and recognize him?"

Nie Rong acknowledged this and explained:

"I have heard. Nonetheless, the reason why Zheng suffered the stain and humiliation of throwing himself into a slummy trade was all for our mom's wellbeing. I myself had not yet been married off then. Since our mother passed away naturally, I married a husband while Yan Zhongzi then went out of his way to find and pick my little brother out among the destitute to befriend, gracing him with profound kindness. What could he have done?! The knight died for the sake of the friend who truly understands him, and because I am still around today, he terminated his life by exacting the most extreme punishment on himself [so that he would be disfigured beyond recognition]. How could I, out of fear of the cruellest form of execution, confine my virtuous little brother's name to oblivion?!"

Her words greatly alarmed all the Han onlookers at the market. She screamed out to Heaven three times and at last succumbed to her grief, dying at Nie Zheng's side.

When Jin, Chu, Qi, and Wey heard the news, they said:

"It was not only Zheng who had ability, but also that headstrong girl of an older sister. If he earnestly could have known of his sister's unquenchable will, that she would not stand for the ignominy of his exposed bones, that she would certainly go a thousand miles past all obstacles to sunder his name, that brother and sister would perish together at the Han market, he perhaps would not have dared to pledge himself to Yan Zhongzi. Yan Zhongzi can also be said to really know people then attain them as his knights!"

Biography

What follows is the legend of Jing Ke as recounted in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian.

While Jing Ke was a native of Wey (衛), his ancestors originally lived in Qi and bore the surname Qing (慶), only later migrating to Wey. He was a well-educated adept of the sword, but although he taught its art to Lord Yuan of Wey (衛元君), the ruler neglected to put it to use. Afterwards, Qin conquered the State of Wei (魏), established Dong Commandery (東郡, lit. "East Commandery") in its place, and forcibly relocated offspring of Lord Yuan residing there to Yewang (野王).

Wandering to Yuci (榆次), Jing Ke engaged with a man named Gai Nie (蓋聶) in discourse about swordsmanship that soon turned sour. Met with Gai Nie's angry glare, Jing Ke left. Someone suggested to Gai Nie that he call him back, to which Gai Nie replied, "A moment ago as I talked swordsmanship with him, we found each other disagreeable, and I glared at him. You can try to go after him, but it was appropriate for him to leave, and he would not dare to stay." They sent a messenger to the host of Jing Ke's lodgings, but Jing Ke had already departed from Yuci on a carriage. When the messenger reported back, Gai Nie repeated, "Of course he's gone. I frightened him away with my glare."

Jing Ke travelled to Handan, where he and a man named Lu Goujian (魯勾踐) played a game of boxi (博戲) but ended up quarrelling over the way it should be played. His opponent furiously berated him, so Jing Ke silently slipped away never to meet him again. (i.e. He ghosted him!)

Arriving in Yan (燕), he became intimate friends with a dog butcher and Gao Jianlei (高漸離), a musician skilled at playing the zhu. He enjoyed alcohol, and everyday he would drink with them in the city. Whenever the wine was sweet, and they were drunk but high in spirits, Gao Jianlei would play the zhu, and Jing Ke would join in with a song to the city. They would share in merriment with one another and then likewise cry their woes away together, paying no mind to anyone else in the world. Though he was an alcoholic, he remained fond of engrossing himself in books, and he had formed connections with many a heroic and eminent individual during his travels through the feudal lands. Being in Yan, the local retired knight Sir Tian Guang (田光) entreated with him, for he intuited that Jing Ke was no ordinary person.

Shortly after, Yan's crown prince Dan escaped from Qin to return home in violation of his status as a collateral to the Qin. Originally, he had been a political hostage in Zhao (趙), where Zheng, the future King of Qin, was born. In their youth, Zheng was amicable to Dan, but after Zheng became king and Dan his hostage in Qin, Zheng treated him derisively. The resentful Dan fled and returned to Yan to beseech for reprisals against Qin, yet Yan was a small state too weak to commit to such endeavours. Meanwhile, Qin was daily fielding armies east out of the mountains, unleashing invasions against Qi, Chu, and the Three Jin and little by little swallowing all the princely states until they fast approached Yan. Lords and subjects of Yan alike feared the calamity upon them. Himself filled with trepidation, Crown Prince Dan asked his tutor Ju Wu (鞠武) for counsel. Ju Wu replied:

Qin is expanding their territory across the world, menacing the Houses of Han, Zhao, and Wei. To their north, they have the strongholds at Sweet Springs (甘泉) and the Valley Mouth (谷口); to their south, the watery torrents of the Jing (涇) and Wei (渭). They boast the fertile soils of Ba (巴) and Han (漢); on their right, the mountains of Long (隴) and Shu (蜀); on their left, the chokepoints at the [Hangu] Pass and Mount Xiao. Their people are numerous, their troops rigorous, their implements of war in surplus. Should they have the intent to move further out, then there would be no place south of the Great Wall and north of the Yi River (易水) that would be secure. So why would you desire to prick at their inverted scales just for having felt the sting of humiliation?!

Dan asked, "Then what should I do?" to which his mentor responded, "Please allow me to think it over." A short while later, a Qin general, Fan Yuqi (樊於期), ran afoul of King Zheng and fled to Yan as well. Crown Prince Dan received him charitably, permitting him to make himself at home. Ju Wu remonstrated:

"You cannot do this! With the Qin king's cruelty and the anger he has nursed against Yan, it is already enough to chill our hearts. And now you would even be receptive to General Fan being here? This is called 'Tossing meat onto the path of a hungry tiger'. There would certainly be no way to shake off the disaster! Even if you had Guan [Zhong] and Yan [Ying] [for ministers], they still would not be able to concoct a plan out of it. I hope that the Crown Prince would send General Fan away to the Xiongnu to silence him and his affair. Please form a pact with the Three Jin to the west, connect with Qi and Chu to the south, and bargain with the Xiongnu to the north, after which we could then plan some more."

The crown prince replied:

"The Grand Tutor's plan would extend the problem for far too many days. My mind is in turmoil; I fear I cannot last another moment. Besides, it is not solely because of this. General Fan, impoverished by hardship unto the very ends of the world, has turned himself over to me. I would never, for the sake of evading the powerful Qin, abandon a pitiable friend. To set him up to the Xiongnu must be when my life is at its end. I hope that the Grand Tutor will reconsider this."

Ji Wu remained displeased:

"You tread in danger while asking for safety, foment disaster to beg for good fortune, are shallow in your plans yet deep in your grudges. You connect with one person, then call them a friend, without caring for the tremendous harm to the nation. This is called 'funding resentment to subsidize peril'. Torch a swan's feather on a charcoal stove, and it would be [gone in a wink] like nothing happened! Not to mention that with the raptor that is Qin driving its violent fury onto us, what road would there still be to walk?! Yan has one Sir Tian Guang, an individual with deep wisdom and profound courage. You might consult with him."

To this last advice, the crown prince was receptive: "I would like to make the acquaintance of Sir Tian Guang through the Great Tutor. May I?" Ji Wu assented, and he went out to meet with Sir Tian, telling him, "The Crown Prince wishes to plot a national affair with you, my dear sir." Tian Guang replied, "It would be my pleasure to advise," and accompanied him back to see the crown prince.

Crown Prince Dan courteously invited Tian Guang inside, where he knelt down to prepare a seat for him. Once Tian Guang had settled in his seat and they had ensured that no one else was around, Dan came off his own to humbly begin making his request, "Yan and Qin cannot coexist. I hope that my sir can pay mind to this." Understanding his meaning, Tian Guang offered an alternative:

"I have heard that when fine steeds are at their prime, they can gallop 1,000 li in one day—until it has weakened with age, and then even the mangiest nag would advance ahead of it. Today, the Crown Prince has heard of the time when Tian Guang was at his prime, without knowing that his vigour has already withered away. Although I dare not plot a national affair with you, my good colleague the Honourable Jing may undertake this mission."

As before, Crown Prince Dan asked, "I would like to befriend the Honourable Jing through you, sir. May I?" Tian Guang assented, and the two hastened out to find him. At Jing Ke's door, Dan warned Tian Guang, "What I have reported to you and everything that you have said regards vital matters of the state. I hope, sir, that you will not divulge them to others!"

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Dynasty (mentioned only)

Notes

References