Zhaoshiguer Legend
01 · Historical Records
In the Spring and Autumn period Duke Jing of Jin listened to the slander of the powerful minister Tu'an Gu, and more than three hundred members of the Zhao clan were wiped out; the righteous men Cheng Ying and Gongsun Chujiu rescued Zhao Wu, the grandson of Zhao Dun, and galloped a thousand li to hide for fifteen years in Mount Yu, present-day Cangshan in Yu county. Some legends were even given a marvellous colour in transmission from generation to generation, gradually evolving into myth, and Zhao Wu was even worshipped by the common people as the Great King of Cangshan. The Yuan playwright Ji Junxiang first adapted it into the drama The Orphan of Zhao Takes Great Revenge, the first of China's ten great tragedies. In the eighteenth century the French writer Voltaire translated it into the play The Chinese Orphan, staged in Europe with a sensation, the earliest Chinese classical drama to go abroad. Taking the history of the Zhao clan of Jin in the Spring and Autumn period as its core and circulating in Yu county in Shanxi, where Zhao Wu was hidden, and its surroundings, it has formed a historical legend cluster both based on historical events and rich in fantasy.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
This solemn and stirring story is first seen in the Zuo Commentary and the Records of the Grand Historian, and is afterwards recorded in the Chronicles of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms, the Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Yuan, the Taiyuan Gazetteer, the Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Ming and the General Gazetteer of Shanxi. Taking as its core this soul-stirring historical event of two thousand six hundred years ago, and around such motifs and episodes as rescuing the orphan, hiding the orphan and rearing the orphan, a great many oral legends loved by the common people circulate in Yu county in Shanxi, where Zhao Wu was hidden, and the surrounding area—at such spots as the Orphan-Hiding Cave, the Gratitude Temple and the Orphan-Rearing Garden in the Cangshan scenic area, and nearby places connected with Cheng Ying's flight with the orphan from pursuit and his rescue and rearing of him, such as Cangshan village, Dawei, Huang'an ridge, the Precious Sword Gully and the Fallen Arrow Mountain—forming a “historical legend cluster” both based on historical events and rich in fantasy.
Rescuing the Orphan (Cheng Ying Rescues the Orphan)
One of the core episodes of the Zhao orphan legend.
Hiding the Orphan
The episode in which Cheng Ying hides the Zhao orphan in Mount Yu for fifteen years.
The Orphan-Hiding Cave at Cangshan
A scenic spot in the Cangshan area of Yu county connected with the hiding of the Zhao orphan.
The Orphan of Zhao Takes Great Revenge
The drama adapted from the legend by Ji Junxiang of the Yuan.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
To protect the descendant of the loyal and good the local people brought water and food, and Cheng Ying took the Zhao orphan to study letters and practise martial arts, rearing an infant into a handsome youth, until the Zhao family's wrong was redressed.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The important historical and cultural value of the Zhao orphan legend lies in the moral outlook it shapes of holding life and death lightly and honouring one's word, and in the spiritual essence of a culture of loyalty and righteousness it forms; it has become material for writers of successive ages at home and abroad and has spread widely.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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