Ji Chang and Di Xin

While Ji Chang was Earl of the West, Chong Houhu memorialised Di Xin that Western Qi was buying the hearts of the people and that the lords were going over to it. Di Xin therefore summoned Ji Chang to court and shut him up at Youli.

Bo Yikao came to the capital with treasures to save his father and was destroyed by Daji’s contrivance, and his flesh was made into cakes and sent to Youli. Though Ji Chang already knew from the hexagram that the cakes were his eldest son, he ate them before the messenger, so that Di Xin would believe him no more than an empty-named diviner.

Seven years later San Yisheng and others presented jade, famous horses and beautiful women at Chaoge and asked You Hun and Fei Zhong to speak for him. Di Xin issued a decree releasing Ji Chang and granted him bow, arrows, axe and battleaxe.

Leaving Youli, Ji Chang travelled west by night, and on the road brought up three white hares, returning to the wilderness the flesh he had swallowed. He never entered the court again after reaching Western Qi, and from then Di Xin lost his direct hold on the lords of the west.