Qingji
| Qingji 慶忌 | |
|---|---|
| Born | 6th century BC |
| Died | 5th century BC |
| Father | King Liao of Wu |
| Qingji | |||||||
| Chinese | 慶忌 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
Qingji was a nobleman at the spring and autumn period. He has different portrayals in different historical records.
Life
The Zuo zhuan records Qingji as a member king Fuchai's clan, often admonishing the king to change his ways of governing in order to avoid calamities for the state of Wu.
According to the record in the Spring and autumn annals of Wu and Yue Qingji was the son of king liao of Wu, and a warrior of Wu.
Zuo zhuan tells that after his advices has been ignored, Qingji left the capital Gusu,[1] moved to Aidi[2] (in today's jiangxi province), and finally took the chance to move into the state of Chu.
Death
According to the Zuo zhuan, In the winter of 475 BC, Qingji has heard that the state of Yue is about to attack Wu. And so he went back to his homeland of Wu in order to arrange peace talks with Yue. Upon his return, he tried to get rid of wu's disloyal people and get Yue's favor, and so he was murdered by a man of Wu.[3]
A more famous and detailed story of his death appears in the Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue's biography of King Helü of Wu. According to this story, king Helü was threatened at the beginning of his regime by Qingji's well known bravery, and assigned a loyalist named Yao Li to murder him. Yao Li was given a public image of a person who endured great suffer under king Helü, backed up by some pre-planned actual suffer such as improsonment and murder of his family and cutting off his arm, so that he can get Qingji's trust. The trust was indeed achieved, and on a joined boat trip Yao Li murdered Qingli using a spear, and later himself committed suicide.[4]
Monster by the same name
Curiously enough, in the book Guan zi the same name, Qingji, is used to denote a monster having a human form four fingers high, riding a small horse. This monster is the product of lakes being dry for a few hundreds of years.[5]