Inside the city of Jinyang, people hung their pots up to cook.

The water outside had already come in. The cooking pits were flooded, and frogs were breeding in them. Of the city wall, only three boards still stood above the water. A board was one course of the frames used to build a rammed-earth wall; an old gloss puts it at eight chi.

Outside the city, watching the water from his chariot, sat Zhibo, the strongest minister in Jin. Wei Huanzi was driving for him, and Han Kangzi rode on the right. Zhibo said: I never knew that water could be used to destroy a state. Now I know.

Wei Huanzi nudged Han Kangzi with his elbow. Han Kangzi stepped on Wei Huanzi’s foot. The Wei capital, Anyi, lay near the Fen River. The Han capital, Pingyang, lay near the Jiang River.

The man besieged in the city was Zhao Wuxu, whom later ages call Zhao Xiangzi. His father, Zhao Jianzi, was the man in the last story who kept beating the drum below the hill of Tie while he coughed blood. Before he died, Zhao Jianzi handed the Zhao house to this youngest son, born of a slave woman.

When I wrote the Hereditary House of Zhao and reached Jinyang, I always felt that those three boards of wall were all the capital the Zhao house had left.

I. The Son Who Could Endure

When Zhao Jianzi chose Wuxu as his heir, everyone knew his mother was a Di slave woman. His father picked him because the other sons found no token on Mount Chang, and only he came back to say: from Mount Chang you can look down on Dai, and Dai can be taken.

Later, when Zhao Jianzi fell ill, he sent Wuxu with troops to join Zhibo in besieging Zheng. The Zuo tradition records it plainly. At the city gate, Zhibo told Zhao Meng to charge in first. Zhao Meng answered: the commander is here. Zhibo cursed him: ugly and without courage, how did you ever become the heir? Zhao Meng answered: because I can endure shame. That way, perhaps, I will not bring harm on the Zhao clan.

The Hereditary House of Zhao records a different scene. Zhibo got drunk and threw wine at him and struck him. Wuxu’s men all asked to fight Zhibo to the death. Wuxu said: my father made me his heir because I can endure insult. Still, he resented Zhibo. When Zhibo went home, he even urged Zhao Jianzi to set Wuxu aside. Zhao Jianzi did not listen.

There are two versions, one at a city gate in battle and one at a drinking party. I keep them both here. What they share is this: Zhibo humiliated him, he endured it, and he remembered.

II. A Basket of Pearls

After Zhao Jianzi died, Wuxu kept mourning for him.

That winter, the army of Yue surrounded the state of Wu. A son mourning his father already ate a reduced diet. Wuxu reduced it one step further.

His retainer Chu Long asked him: three years of mourning is already the heaviest rite for a parent, and you reduce it still more. Is there some other reason?

Wuxu said: at Huangchi, my late father swore a covenant with the king of Wu that the two houses would share likes and dislikes. Now Yue is besieging Wu. As his son, I do not want to abandon my father’s old pledge, and I would like to stand against Yue. But that is beyond what Jin can do. So I can only eat one step less.

Chu Long said: what if the king of Wu learned of this? Wuxu said: could that be done? Chu Long said: let me try.

Chu Long went first to the Yue camp and told them that the states of the central plain all hoped the king of Yue would succeed, and asked to go into the city to see. The Yue let him in. Before the king of Wu, he passed on Wuxu’s words: my late father swore a covenant with you at Huangchi. Now that you are in danger, Wuxu does not dare to spare himself, but this is beyond what Jin can do, and he has sent me to explain.

The king of Wu bowed down to the ground and gave him a small basket of pearls to carry back to Zhao Meng. The king said: Goujian means to keep me alive to suffer. I cannot even manage to die.

Wuxu was keeping an old word of his father’s. He could keep faith. He could also turn on a man. What came next proved it.

III. A Bronze Ladle

Wuxu’s elder sister had long ago married the ruler of Dai, to the north.

After Zhao Jianzi was buried, while Wuxu was still in mourning clothes, he went north, climbed Mount Xiawu, and invited the king of Dai to a feast. He had his cooks serve the king and his attendants with bronze ladles. When the wine was being poured, he secretly ordered the kitchen men to raise their ladles, and they beat the king of Dai and his officials to death. Then he sent troops and took the land of Dai.

When his sister heard, she wept and cried out to heaven, and killed herself with the pin from her hair. The people of Dai pitied her and named the mountain where she died Mount Moji, the Mountain of the Hairpin.

Wuxu gave Dai as a fief to Zhao Zhou, the son of his elder brother Boluo, with the title Lord Cheng of Dai. Boluo was the heir who had once been set aside. He was already dead.

Dai was what his father had shown his sons from Mount Chang. This was done harshly and done fast. In the Hereditary House of Zhao, it is the first great deed of Wuxu as head of the Zhao house.

IV. The Zhi Chose the Wrong Man

To tell the siege of Jinyang, we must start with Zhibo himself.

His name was Zhi Yao. When his father, Zhi Xuanzi, wanted to make him heir, a clansman, Zhi Guo, objected: better to choose Zhi Xiao. Zhi Xuanzi said: Xiao is stubborn. Zhi Guo said: Xiao’s stubbornness is in his face. Yao’s stubbornness is in his heart. Stubbornness of the heart ruins a state. Stubbornness of the face does no harm. Yao is better than others in five ways: fine hair and beard and great height; archery, driving and strength; mastery of every skill; clever words and quick speech; firmness and daring. Yet he is deeply unkind. If he uses five strengths to crush people and unkindness to run things, who can bear him? If you really make Yao the heir, the Zhi clan will surely be destroyed.

Zhi Xuanzi did not listen. Zhi Guo went to the court scribe, separated his own branch from the Zhi clan, and took the name Fu.

Later, back from Wey, Zhibo was drinking with Han Kangzi and Wei Huanzi at Lantai. At the table he made fun of Han Kangzi and insulted Duan Gui, the Han counselor. His clansman Zhibo Guo warned him: if you are not on guard, disaster will surely come. Zhibo said: disaster will come from me. If I do not start it, who would dare?

Zhibo Guo said: it is not so. Even gnats, ants, wasps and scorpions can hurt people, let alone a ruler and his chief minister. Zhibo still did not listen.

By then, the real power in Jin was in Zhibo’s hands. The four minister houses divided the lands left by the Fan and Zhonghang clans. Duke Chu of Jin was angry and asked Qi and Lu for help against the four ministers. The four ministers attacked the duke instead. He fled toward Qi and died on the road. Zhibo set up a new ruler. He grew more arrogant by the year.

V. Only Zhao Refused

The arrogant Zhibo began to ask other houses for land.

He asked Han first. Han Kangzi did not want to give it. Duan Gui advised him: Zhibo is greedy and fierce. If we refuse, he will surely attack Han. Better to give. Once he gets a taste, he will ask others. If they refuse, he will turn his troops on them. Then Han can escape the danger and wait for things to change. Han Kangzi sent him a town of ten thousand households.

Zhibo then asked Wei. Wei Huanzi did not want to give it either. His counselor Zhao Jia said much the same: Han gave, so if Wei refuses, Wei is flexing its strength at home and angering Zhibo abroad, and he will surely turn his army on Wei. Wei Huanzi also sent a town of ten thousand households.

Zhibo sent to Zhao a third time, asking for the lands of Cai and Gaolang. Wuxu refused. The Hereditary House of Zhao says he remembered the humiliation under the walls of Zheng.

Zhang Mengtan, steward of the Zhao house, made a suggestion: the jades, bells and cauldrons that the late lord left were meant for times of danger to the state. Why not stop sparing treasure for a while and use it to win over the other lords? Wuxu said: I have no envoy for it. Zhang Mengtan proposed a man named Di. Wuxu said: my own virtue falls short, and I am not equal to my father. Lacking virtue and trying to buy help with treasure? This man Di wants to feed my desires. He is nursing my faults to win his own salary. I will not do it, even if we all die together.

So Zhibo secretly joined with Han and Wei and prepared to march on Zhao.

VI. Where to Go

With troops on the way, Wuxu went out and asked: where shall I go?

His attendants said: Zhangzi is close, and its walls are thick and whole. Wuxu said: the people wore themselves out to build those walls. If I now make them fight to the death to hold them, who will stand with me?

His attendants said: the storehouses of Handan are full. Wuxu said: those storehouses were filled by squeezing the people dry. If I now send them off to die, who will stand with me?

He said: Jinyang, then. It is the place my father entrusted to me, the place where Yin Duo governed gently. The people there will be united.

This did not come from nowhere. As the last story told, Zhao Jianzi sent Yin Duo to govern Jinyang. Yin Duo asked whether the place was to be squeezed for taxes or built into a shield. Zhao Jianzi said a shield, and Yin Duo cut the number of registered households. Later Zhao Jianzi warned Wuxu: when Jin is in trouble, do not think Yin Duo too young or Jinyang too far. You must fall back there.

The Stratagems of the Warring States tells it in more detail. Zhang Mengtan said: Dong Anyu was the late lord’s able servant and governed Jinyang for generations, and Yin Duo kept it in order after him. Their government still lives there. Settle at Jinyang. Wuxu sent Yanling Sheng ahead with chariots and riders and followed after.

At Jinyang he inspected the walls, checked the treasury and looked over the granaries. He said to Zhang Mengtan: the walls are whole, the treasury is enough, the granaries are full. But there are no arrows. What can we do? Zhang Mengtan said: I hear that when Master Dong governed Jinyang, the palace walls were built of reeds, wormwood and thorn stems, some over ten feet high. Pull them out and use them. They tried them, and not even the best arrow bamboo was stronger.

Wuxu asked again: we have arrows, but little bronze. What can we do? Zhang Mengtan said: when Master Dong built the palace halls, the bases of the pillars were all of refined bronze. Dig them out, and you will have bronze to spare.

The orders were set and the defenses were ready. What his father’s generation had built into the walls and set under the pillars was brought out only now.

VII. Red Writing in the Bamboo

In the Zhao house’s own memory, the siege of Jinyang came with a strange event.

When Wuxu fled to Jinyang, his retainer Yuan Guo followed and fell behind. At Wangze he saw three men who could be seen above the waist but not below. They gave Yuan Guo two joints of bamboo, closed at the nodes, and said: give this to Zhao Wuxu for us.

Yuan Guo reached Jinyang and reported to Wuxu. Wuxu fasted for three days and split the bamboo with his own hands. Inside was writing in red. The writer called himself the envoy of the god of Mount Huotai and said: on the day bingxu in the third month, I will make you turn and destroy the Zhi. You in turn must set up sacrifices to me in a hundred towns, and I will give you the land of the Linhu. It went on to foretell that a later Zhao generation would bring forth a great king of strange looks who wore his robe closed on the left, and who would hold the land of Hezong all the way to the northern peoples.

Wuxu bowed twice and accepted the command of the three gods.

This passage appears only in the Hereditary House of Zhao. Like Zhao Jianzi’s five days of unbroken sleep, it belongs to what the Zhao kept in their own records. I set it down as it came to me. Most readers take the later great king to be King Wuling of Zhao, who adopted nomad dress and mounted archery more than a century later.

VIII. Only Three Boards Left

Zhibo led the troops of Han and Wei against Jinyang.

The Stratagems of the Warring States says the three armies climbed the walls and fought, failed to take the city in three months, then spread out to surround it and broke open the Jin River to flood it. The Hereditary House of Zhao says the siege lasted more than a year and that the water came from the Fen River. The two books differ on the river and the time. Both say that only three boards of the wall were left above water.

People in the city hung their pots up to cook. The Hereditary House of Zhao adds that they came to the point of trading children to eat. The Stratagems says they lived in nests up high like birds, food and money were almost gone, and the soldiers were sick and thin.

All the ministers began to waver, and they showed Wuxu less and less courtesy. Only one man, Gao Gong, never once failed in the courtesy owed by a subject.

Wuxu himself began to give way. He said to Zhang Mengtan: food is gone, strength is spent, the officers are sick. I cannot hold. I am thinking of surrendering the city. What do you say?

Zhang Mengtan said: I have heard that if a state about to fall cannot be saved, and a danger cannot be turned to safety, then there is no point in prizing clever advisers. Put that thought away and do not speak of it again. Let me go and see the lords of Han and Wei.

On Zhibo’s side, too, someone saw the trouble. Zhibo’s adviser Xi Ci told him: the lords of Han and Wei will surely turn against you. Zhibo asked: how do you know? Xi Ci said: from how people behave. Once Zhao is gone, the danger moves on to Han and Wei. The wall has only three boards above water and surrender is days away, yet those two show no joy, only worry. What is that, if not a plan to turn?

The next day, Zhibo actually told the two lords what Xi Ci had said. They answered: Xi Ci is speaking for Zhao, trying to make you doubt us. Then they hurried out. Xi Ci asked Zhibo: why did you tell them what I said? Zhibo asked: how do you know I did? Xi Ci said: they looked straight at me and walked out fast.

Xi Ci knew Zhibo would not listen. He asked to be sent as envoy to Qi, and left.

IX. When the Lips Are Gone, the Teeth Are Cold

Zhang Mengtan slipped out of the city by night and secretly went to see Han Kangzi and Wei Huanzi.

He said: I have heard that when the lips are gone, the teeth grow cold. Now Zhibo has led you two against Zhao, and Zhao is about to fall. When Zhao falls, you two are next.

The two said: we know it. But Zhibo is rough and cares for no one. If he learns of our plan before it is done, disaster will come at once. What then?

Zhang Mengtan said: the plan comes out of your two mouths and into my ears. No one else will know. The two secretly pledged their armies to Zhang Mengtan, set a date, and sent him back into Jinyang that night. When Zhang Mengtan reported, Wuxu bowed to him twice.

Zhang Mengtan went to pay a call on Zhibo. Coming out, he met Zhi Guo, a clansman of Zhibo, outside the camp gate. Zhi Guo went in and told Zhibo: the two lords may be about to change sides. I met Zhang Mengtan outside the camp gate. He looked proud and walked with his feet held high. Zhibo did not believe it. Zhi Guo urged him again: better to kill the two lords. If not, then buy their counselors, Zhao Jia and Duan Gui, and promise each a county of ten thousand households once Zhao is beaten. Zhibo said: if I beat Zhao and split the land three ways, and then give each of them a county of ten thousand households, I get too little. No.

The Stratagems says that when Zhi Guo saw his words go unused, he went out, changed his surname to Fu, and left. The Discourses of the States says the man who changed his clan name to Fu was Zhi Guo, written with a different character, who had argued against making Zhibo heir long before. The two books may be recording one man. I do not force them together here.

When Zhang Mengtan heard of this, he told Wuxu: if we do not strike tonight, it will be too late.

On the agreed night, the officers guarding the dikes were killed, the dikes were breached, and the water turned and poured into Zhibo’s camp. Zhibo’s army fell into confusion fighting the flood. Han and Wei struck from both flanks, and Wuxu led his men straight at them from the front. Zhibo’s army was crushed, and Zhibo was taken.

The day recorded in the Hereditary House of Zhao is the very bingxu of the third month written in the bamboo. The three houses destroyed the Zhi and divided their land. By the Chronological Table of the Six States, this was 453 BCE.

X. Who Came First

After the fighting, Wuxu handed out rewards, and Gao Gong was ranked first.

Zhang Mengtan said: in the crisis at Jinyang, Gao Gong alone did nothing.

Wuxu said: when Jinyang was in its worst danger, all the ministers grew slack. Only Gao Gong never failed in a subject’s courtesy. That is why I put him first.

It was Zhang Mengtan who went out and staked his life. It was Gao Gong who kept the courtesy. Wuxu gave first place to the second. What he wanted everyone to know was who still treated him as their lord when the city was about to go under.

From then on, Zhao held Dai in the north and the Zhi lands in the south, and was stronger than Han or Wei. Wuxu set up sacrifices to the three gods in a hundred towns and put Yuan Guo in charge of the rites at Mount Huotai.

XI. The Lacquered Skull

Wuxu hated Zhibo most of all. He had Zhibo’s skull lacquered and used it as a drinking vessel.

Zhibo had a follower named Yu Rang. He had first served the Fan and Zhonghang and made no name. When he went over to Zhibo, Zhibo valued him highly. After Zhibo died, Yu Rang fled into the mountains and said: a man dies for the one who understands him, and a woman makes herself beautiful for the one who delights in her. Zhibo understood me. I must avenge him.

He changed his name, passed himself off as a convict, and got into the palace plastering the latrine, with a dagger hidden on him. When Wuxu went to the latrine, his heart stirred. He had the plasterer seized and questioned. It was Yu Rang. Yu Rang said: I want to avenge Zhibo. The attendants wanted to kill him. Wuxu said: he is a man of honor. I will simply take care to avoid him. Zhibo is dead and left no heir, and still his follower wants to avenge him. This is one of the worthiest men under heaven. And he let him go.

Some time later, Yu Rang covered his body with lacquer until his skin broke out in sores as if he had leprosy, swallowed charcoal to make himself hoarse, and begged in the market. Not even his wife knew him. A friend did, and wept: with your talent, if you served Wuxu, he would surely take you close. Then you could do what you wanted. Wouldn’t that be far easier? Yu Rang said: to bind myself to a man as his subject and then try to kill him is to serve a lord with a divided heart. The road I have chosen is very hard. But I am doing this to shame every subject, now and in later ages, who serves his lord with a divided heart.

Later, Wuxu went out, and Yu Rang hid under a bridge he would cross. At the bridge, the horses shied. Wuxu said: this must be Yu Rang. He sent men to ask, and it was.

Wuxu confronted him: didn’t you serve the Fan and Zhonghang? Zhibo destroyed them all, and you did not avenge them. Instead you bound yourself to Zhibo. Now Zhibo too is dead. Why must you alone avenge him so deeply?

Yu Rang said: the Fan and Zhonghang treated me as an ordinary man, so I repaid them as an ordinary man. Zhibo treated me as the finest man in the state, so I repay him as the finest man in the state.

Wuxu sighed and wept and said: Yu Rang! What you have done for Zhibo has already made your name. I spared you once, and that is enough. Make your own plans. I will not let you go again. He had soldiers surround him.

Yu Rang said: I have heard that a wise ruler does not hide another man’s virtue, and a loyal subject has a duty to die for his name. You pardoned me before, and everyone under heaven praised your worth. Today I should die. I only ask for your robe, to strike at it and show my wish for revenge. Then I can die without regret. I do not dare expect it. I only lay my heart open.

Wuxu thought this truly honorable and sent a man to bring his robe to Yu Rang. Yu Rang drew his sword, leapt three times, struck at the robe, and said: now I can go below and repay Zhibo. Then he fell on his sword. On the day he died, the men of purpose in Zhao all wept when they heard.

XII. Giving the Seat Back to His Brother’s Line

Wuxu later married a woman of the Kongtong clan, and they had five sons.

But he never forgot that his elder brother Boluo had been the heir and had lost the seat because of him. So he would not name his own son. He insisted on passing the seat to Boluo’s son, Lord Cheng of Dai. Lord Cheng died first, so he made Lord Cheng’s son, Zhao Huan, his heir. Wuxu died after thirty-three years in power, and Zhao Huan succeeded him as Marquis Xian of Zhao.

The Discourses of the States also records a small matter, without a year. He sent Xinzhi Muzi to attack the Di, and two towns, Zuoren and Zhongren, were taken. When the messenger arrived, Wuxu was about to eat, and his face showed fear. An attendant asked: this is a great success. Why are you not pleased? Wuxu said: I have heard that when virtue is not yet whole and good fortune arrives all together, that is called luck. Luck is not blessing. That is why I am afraid.

A man who killed his sister’s husband with a bronze ladle, a man who lacquered his enemy’s skull into a drinking cup, could also feel afraid at a victory, and could also give the seat back to his brother’s line. I set all of it down as I found it.

Epilogue

After the siege of Jinyang, Jin in effect had only three houses left: Zhao, Han and Wei.

Fifty years later, King Weilie of Zhou formally made the three houses of Zhao, Han and Wei into feudal lords. Later readers of history often take that year as the start of the Warring States.

When I write this far, I always return to the pots hung up in Jinyang. When only three boards of wall stood above the water, some in the city wanted to surrender and some wavered. But there was a Gao Gong who kept the courtesy, and a Zhang Mengtan who went out by night. The state of Zhao was held up on those three boards of wall.

Sources and editorial boundaries

1. Core source: Shiji chapter 43, Hereditary House of Zhao, the end of the Zhao Jianzi section and the whole Zhao Xiangzi section (from “In the eleventh year of Duke Chu of Jin, Zhibo attacked Zheng” to “Xiangzi died in the thirty-third year of his rule; Huan succeeded, and this was Marquis Xian,” plus the line on his brother Huanzi), read in the Wikisource Shiji transcription and checked against the Three Commentaries in the Wikisource Shiji sanjia zhu, chapter 43. No modern translation was copied. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷043 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記三家註/卷043

2. Cross-checks: Zhanguo ce chapter 18, Stratagems of Zhao 1 (Shiliju congshu edition on Wikisource), the sections “Zhibo leads the troops of Han and Wei against Zhao,” “Zhibo leads Zhao, Han and Wei against the Fan and Zhonghang,” and “Yu Rang, grandson of Bi Yang of Jin”; Guoyu chapter 15, Discourses of Jin 9, the sections on Jinyang as a shield, Xinzhi Muzi’s campaign against the Di, Zhi Guo on Zhi Yao, Zhibo Guo’s warning, and the siege of Jinyang, with Wei Zhao’s commentary; Zuozhuan, Duke Ai year 20 (Yue besieges Wu; Zhao Meng reduces his mourning diet; Chu Long’s mission) and Duke Dao year 4 (Zhibo besieges Zheng and insults Zhao Meng); Shiji chapter 86 (Yu Rang in the Biographies of Assassins), chapter 44 (Zhong Qi’s speech in the Hereditary House of Wei: Zhibo inspects the water, the elbow and the foot), chapter 45 (Hereditary House of Han), chapter 39 (Hereditary House of Jin, Dukes Chu, Ai and Lie) and chapter 15 (Chronological Table of the Six States, 455–453 BCE). All read in Wikisource transcriptions. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/戰國策_(士禮居叢書本)/趙/一 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/國語/卷15 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/春秋左氏傳/哀公 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷086 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷044 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷045 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷039 https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷015

3. Key sayings retold in plain language in the story, with their exact sources (original wording is given in the Chinese notes): the hung pots, the three boards and the frogs in the stoves (Shiji 43; Zhanguo ce; Guoyu); Zhibo inspecting the water with Wei Huanzi driving and Han Kangzi on the right, and the elbow and the foot (Shiji 44); “because I can endure shame” (Zuozhuan, Duke Dao 4) and “because I can endure insult” (Shiji 43); the reduced mourning diet, Chu Long’s mission and the basket of pearls (Zuozhuan, Duke Ai 20); the bronze ladles and the hairpin (Shiji 43); Zhi Guo on stubbornness of the face and of the heart (Guoyu); “disaster will come from me” and the gnats and scorpions (Guoyu); Wuxu’s refusal to buy help (Guoyu); “where shall I go” and the choice of Jinyang (Guoyu); the arrows from the palace walls and the bronze from the pillar bases (Zhanguo ce); the red writing in the bamboo (Shiji 43); Zhang Mengtan against surrender, Xi Ci’s reading of faces, and “when the lips are gone, the teeth grow cold” (Zhanguo ce); Gao Gong’s reward (Shiji 43); Yu Rang’s words (Shiji 86); “luck is not blessing” (Guoyu).

4. Dates and differing accounts (historical boundaries): (1) Zhibo’s insult to Wuxu: the Zuozhuan (Duke Dao 4, about 464 BCE) places it at the gate of Zheng with a dialogue; the Shiji places it in Duke Chu’s eleventh year as a drunken assault with wine, adding that Zhibo urged Zhao Jianzi to set Wuxu aside. Both are given. (2) Wuxu’s accession: the Shiji dates Jianzi’s death to Duke Chu’s seventeenth year and says “in Xiangzi’s first year, Yue besieged Wu”; the Zuozhuan places Yue’s siege of Wu and Zhao Meng’s reduced mourning diet in 475 BCE. The Chronological Table instead makes 453 BCE Xiangzi’s fifth year, which does not agree. The story gives no year for his accession or death, only “thirty-three years in power” from the Shiji. (3) The killing of the king of Dai appears only in the Shiji and is not dated beyond “after Jianzi was buried, before mourning ended.” (4) The demands for land and the advice of the Han and Wei counselors follow the Zhanguo ce; Zhao’s refusal of Cai and Gaolang follows the Zhanguo ce, and the motive of the Zheng humiliation follows the Shiji. Duan Gui is a Han counselor in the Zhanguo ce but Wei Huanzi’s chief minister in Wei Zhao’s note to the Guoyu; the story follows the Zhanguo ce. The Han Feizi has a close parallel that is not cited separately. (5) Zhang Mengtan is called Zhang Mengtong in the Shiji (the Suoyin says Sima Qian avoided his father’s name, Tan) and Zhang Tan in the Guoyu. The man sent ahead to Jinyang appears as “Yanling Wang” in the Shiliju text; Bao Biao and Wang Yinglin read “Yanling Sheng” from the Han Feizi, which the story follows. (6) Siege length and river: the Zhanguo ce has three months of assault, the Jin River and a three-year siege; the Shiji has more than a year and the Fen River; Zhong Qi’s speech in Shiji 44 has the Jin River. Both are kept. (7) Yuan Guo’s bamboo and the day bingxu appear only in the Shiji and are marked as Zhao family tradition; identifying the later great king with King Wuling is the usual reading, not stated in the text. (8) Xi Ci and Zhi Guo appear only in the Zhanguo ce; Zhi Guo taking the name Fu and the Guoyu’s Zhi Guo (a different character) founding the Fu branch may be two versions of one story, and are not merged. (9) Zhibo’s end: “captured” in the Zhanguo ce, “killed in the field” by Duan Gui in the Guoyu; the year 453 BCE follows the Chronological Table. (10) The skull: “lacquered his head as a drinking vessel” in Shiji 86, “used his head as a drinking vessel” in the Zhanguo ce. Yu Rang’s story follows Shiji 86; the Zhanguo ce differs in wording. The bleeding robe quoted by the Suoyin from the Zhanguo ce is not in the received text and is not used. (11) The succession through Boluo’s line and the Di campaign are undated. (12) The three houses made lords: Shiji 39 dates it to Duke Lie’s nineteenth year, usually 403 BCE; the story says only “fifty years later.”

5. Historical and creative boundaries: every exchange and saying comes from the sources above, retold in plain modern language by the editor. No weather, facial expressions, inner thoughts or invented dialogue were added (“his face showed fear” follows the Guoyu). The lines “those three boards of wall were all the capital the Zhao house had left,” “Zhibo humiliated him, he endured it, and he remembered,” “He could keep faith. He could also turn on a man,” “What his father’s generation had built into the walls … was brought out only now,” “What he wanted everyone to know …,” “Jin in effect had only three houses left,” the closing paragraph of section XII and the last line are the editor’s connecting comments, not claims of the sources. “Later readers often take that year as the start of the Warring States” refers to common practice such as Sima Guang’s Zizhi tongjian, which begins in 403 BCE. The first-person “I wrote the Hereditary House of Zhao” and similar lines describe the arrangement of the Shiji through a historian’s voice; they are not Sima Qian’s words.

6. Map: three points. (1) Jinyang (present-day Taiyuan area, Shanxi), linked to 453 BCE (the siege and the fall of the Zhi); OpenStreetMap reference point for Taiyuan, representing the area only. (2) Zheng (present-day Xinzheng area, Henan), linked to 464 BCE (Zhibo besieges Zheng and insults Zhao Meng); OpenStreetMap reference point for Xinzheng. (3) Dai (present-day Yuxian area, Hebei), for the conquest of Dai, not linked to a year; OpenStreetMap reference point for Yuxian. Mount Xiawu, Mount Moji, Wangze, Zhangzi, Handan, Cai, Gaolang, Mount Huotai, Anyi and Pingyang are left unplaced.

7. Rights: the ancient sources are in the public domain. The Chinese and English texts are original contemporary narrative.