User:Sol Pacificus/Sandbox
Biography
What follows is the legend of Nie Zheng as recounted in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian.[1]
Legend
Nie Zheng was originally from a small town called Zhi (within modern-day Jiyuan, Henan[2]), 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.[1]
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 a minister named 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.[1]
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 warrant your benefaction".[1]
At this, Zhongzi moved aside from others' earshot, for he then told Nie Zheng this:[1]
"I have grievances [awaiting recompense], and I have travelled across numerous princely states. Having arrived in Qi, I personally happened to hear of how high is your respectful 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 be your respectful friend. How could I dare to have any further hopes or requests?"
Whereupon Nie Zheng replied, "That is why I diminished 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 body to someone else." Still, Zhongzi fervently continued his display of accommodating courtesy, 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.[1]
Another long time passed and eventually Nie Zheng's mother died. Once she had been buried and the mourning period had elapsed...
Biography
What follows is the legend of Jing Ke as recounted in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian.[3]
While Jing Ke was a native of Wey (衛),[note 1] his ancestors originally lived in Qi and bore the surname Qing (慶), only later migrating to Wey.[3] 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).[3][note 2]
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."[3]
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!)[3]
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.[3]
A short time later, 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[note 3] 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 mentor Ju Wu (鞠武) for counsel. Ju Wu replied:[3][4]
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 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 pique their inverted scales for having felt the sting of humiliation?![note 4]
Appearances
- Assassin's Creed: Dynasty (mentioned only)
Notes
- ↑ The state Wèi (衛) is commonly spelled Wey in contravention of the Hanyu Pinyin romanization standard to distinguish from the more prominent state Wèi (魏) because the two polities' modern Mandarin pronunciations are homophonic. In ancient times, their pronunciations were distinct and remain so in some other Chinese languages today.
- ↑ These were specifically offspring not of Lord Yuan's legal wife.
- ↑ i.e. Zhao (趙), Wei (魏), and Han (韓)
- ↑ "Inverted scales" is a metaphor for an individual's trigger. This line is translated less literally by J.R. Hightower in Burton Watson's Records of the Grand Historian of China (1961) as: "Angry as you are at the insults you have suffered, how can you dream of baiting such a dragon?"
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Sima Qian. (94 BCE). "Biographies of Assassins". Records of the Grand Historian. Chinese Text Project. Accessed 27 June 2021. https://ctext.org/shiji/ci-ke-lie-zhuan.
- ↑ 聶政 （戰國時期刺客). Baidu Baike. Accessed 9 April 2022.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Sima Qian. (94 BCE). "Biographies of Assassins". In Records of the Grand Historian. Chinese Text Project. Accessed 5 July 2023. https://ctext.org/shiji/ci-ke-lie-zhuan.
- ↑ Sima Qian. (1961). "The Biography of Ching K'o", translated by J.R. Hightower. In Records of the Grand Historian of China, edited by Burton Watson. 1st ed. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, pp. 106–117.