The Text and Translation

The translation of Chi jiu below is based on the transcriptions of the original text provided by the modern Tsinghua editors, supplemented with more recent scholarship on the text.Footnote ⁷ My readings generally agree with those of the Tsinghua editors, with certain key characters altered in cases where transcriptional and interpretative decisions are problematic. For reference, the original slip numbers are given in the lenticular brackets at the end of each slip.

Textual Context and the Three-text Manuscript

Although mainly concerned with the deeds of Yi Yin, the Chi jiu story abruptly changed focus at its conclusion to explain why people would build parapets on top of the houses. Based on this feature, Sarah Allan suggested that the text may have been similar to a “historiola,” as it serves to explain and mythicize the practice of building parapets as an exorcism ritual.Footnote ¹⁷ This was likely the case, especially considering many other ritual-explaining texts that invoke important historical figures exist in early and early medieval Chinese literature.Footnote ¹⁸

On the other hand, Chi jiu was not a standalone text. In addition to Chi jiu, there are two other Tsinghua texts in which Yi Yin is the central figure, *Yin zhi 尹至 (The Arrival of Yi Yin) and *Yin gao 尹誥 (The Announcement of Yi Yin).Footnote ¹⁹ *Yin zhi records a short narrative and a dialogue between Yi Yin and Tang: Yi Yin returns to Tang from Xia, talks about what he saw during his stay, and concludes that the rule of Xia is failing. Tang decides to leverage the situation, campaigns against Xia and defeats them.Footnote ²⁰ *Yin gao records a speech given by Yi Yin, talking about Xia’s recent defeat and Tang’s new overlord status.Footnote ²¹ Together with Chi jiu, they are known as the “three Yi Yin texts” 伊尹三篇.Footnote ²²

Most importantly for the establishment of textual sequence, the bamboo slips of Chi jiu, *Yin zhi, and *Yin gao, similar to many other manuscripts in the Tsinghua collection, are all marked by an oblique line that is cut on the verso of the slips, which runs from the upper left to lower right. They are in fact part of a single line: the line cut on the verso of Chi jiu continues to the verso of *Yin zhi, and the line cut on the verso of *Yin zhi continues to the verso of *Yin gao. This important discovery indicates that the three Yi Yin texts had initially been written on the same set of bamboo slips and bound together as a single manuscript, with Chi jiu at the beginning, followed by *Yin zhi, and then *Yin gao.Footnote ²³ In addition, a careful epigraphic study reveals that all three Yi Yin texts were written in the same hand.Footnote ²⁴

Despite the consistency in the material features of the three texts, Chi jiu is very different from *Yin zhi and *Yin gao. Chi jiu is written in a lively language, with unique grammar and many repetitions. The style of *Yin zhi and *Yin gao is more refined and archaic; their vocabulary closely resembles the archaic chapters of Shang shu 尚書.Footnote ²⁵ *Yin zhi and *Yin gao are also both much shorter than Chi jiu; Chi jiu extends across fifteen bamboo slips, *Yin zhi is only five slips long and *Yin gao is only four. Yet, the three were bound together and formed a single manuscript. This combination is very likely deliberately assembled by the original manuscript compiler. As Xiao Yunxiao pointed out, the Chi jiu-*Yin Zhi-*Yin Gao sequence is both chronological and causal.Footnote ²⁶ In Chi jiu, Yi Yin flees from Tang’s court into Xia. Next, in *Yin zhi, Yi Yin returns from Xia to Tang’s court with intelligence gathered in Xia, then helps Tang to defeat Xia. Finally, in *Yin gao, Yi Yin talks about an already defeated Xia, and how Tang could learn from this lesson. Such a sequence generates an overarching narrative about Yi Yin across three heterogeneous texts.

Narratives concerning Yi Yin’s deeds between Shang and Xia also exist in the transmitted literature; they usually describe Yi Yin’s dealing in Xia as spying on Xia for Tang. The military treatise Sunzi bingfa 孫子兵法 has a chapter dedicated to spying (yong jian 用間), in which the author applauds that “the rise of the Yin 殷 [another name for Shang] was due to Yi Zhi [another name for Yi Yin] serving under the Xia” 昔殷之興也，伊摯在夏.Footnote ²⁷ The Lüshi chunqiu chapter “Shen da” 慎大 also provides a detailed account of Yi Yin’s dealings as Tang’s spy.Footnote ²⁸ “Shen da” states that Tang personally shot Yi Yin with a bow and arrow, as the Xia lord might otherwise not believe that Yi Yin was fleeing from Tang; in Chi jiu, Xiaochen also fled from Tang to Xia, as he was afraid of Tang’s punishment. Moreover, the Tsinghua editors have observed that part of the narrative and style of “Shen da” also closely resembles that of *Yin zhi.Footnote ²⁹ Both texts essentially tell the same story of Yi Yin’s return to Tang, beginning with a line saying that Yi Yin “returned from Xia” to Tang’s court, as well as including a nearly identical line in which Tang asks Yi Yin to relate what he has seen in Xia.Footnote ³⁰ The three-text manuscript possibly belonged to this tradition about Yi Yin, with Yi Yin seemingly fleeing from Shang to Xia, only to serve as a secret agent in Xia, and assisting Tang’s anti-Xia campaign afterward.

Considering the varied nature of the three texts, the Yi Yin manuscript is a heterogeneous compilation, constructed from individual texts in different genres, a feature commonly seen in many other early Chinese manuscripts and also transmitted materials.Footnote ³¹ Such collections often employed different/various strategies to glue, shape, and package their heterogeneous contents together, offering a glimpse into how the earlier compilers processed their textual materials.Footnote ³² Again, the compilation strategy of the three-text Yi Yin manuscript is not an isolated case. The manuscript arranges its constituent texts based on the successive sequence of Yi Yin’s deeds and keeps the three texts in their place within a chronological order. One of the silk manuscript texts excavated from the Mawangdui 馬王堆 Han dynasty tombs, Shiliu jing 十六經, also has a series of chapters whose narrative elements reflect a chronological sequence.Footnote ³³ These narrative elements function as paratextual features to further unite the different materials collected in Shiliu jing into a whole under the name of the Yellow Emperor. The three-text Yi Yin manuscript, arguably, used a similar guideline tool—the causational sequence of Yi Yin’s deeds—to unite its texts into a chronological framework, albeit on a much smaller scale. Chi jiu narrates why Yi Yin moved to Xia, with *Yin zhi and *Yin gao following afterward, and discussing what happened to Yi Yin after Chi jiu, which is almost like an “add-on” or “sequel” to the Chi jiu story. Both are much shorter than Chi jiu as well.

From these observations, the three-text Yi Yin manuscript not only follows the broader narrative traditions of Yi Yin, but also echoes the broader compilation traditions. Notably, despite Chi jiu concluding with a historiola-style explanation and shifting the focus away from Xiaochen, the original manuscript compiler still arranged the text into an overarching story about Yi Yin. Instead of limiting the message to why people should build parapets on their roofs, the compiler repurposed Chi jiu for the Yi Yin manuscript. While studies focusing on Chi jiu as a standalone text speak to the intentions of the original text or its source materials, Chi jiu also existed in the form of part of a compilation; the manuscript compiler’s intentions should be taken into account as well. This article will analyze Chi jiu within this three-text framing of the original manuscript in the later sections.

The “Shamanism” Interpretation

From the discussion above, we can safely assume that the Chi jiu text belongs to the wider tradition of Yi Yin-related tales. Nevertheless, the text also has various literary elements that are not usually connected with the common tradition of Yi Yin narratives, which are worth analyzing.

Some scholars read the text as having “shamanic elements,” which may require further reexamination. Chi jiu describes the anthropomorphic raven that saved Yi Yin as “Wu-raven” 巫烏. The term wu 巫 in the early Chinese context is often translated as “shaman,” although it has a broader meaning, including “sorcerer,” “priest,” “diviner,” or “magician.” Figures identified as wu usually have religious, occult, and medical knowledge, and can communicate with deities or act as a healer. The presence of 巫 in the text caused scholars to assume the Wu-raven had a “shamanic” role. Furthermore, when portraying the effect of Tang’s curse and the Wu-raven saving Yi Yin when he lay on the road, Chi jiu states the following:

The Tsinghua editors read the 睪 (*lak > ze) component of the character 歝 (*lâkh > yi) as standing for the partially homophonous verb 宅 (*drâk > zhai), meaning “live” or “stay.”Footnote ³⁴ Su Jianzhou suggests a different transcription of the graph, rendering it as 奰 (*brɘ(k)h > bi) and suggesting that it stands for fu 伏 “lay hidden.”Footnote ³⁵ Both readings suggest that the Wu-raven stayed in Yi Yin’s throat, implying that the raven possessed him like a spirit possessed a shaman. On the other hand, Huang Dekuan suggests 歝 stands for the verb 釋 (*lhak > shi), meaning “release” or “clear,” as the characters for both words share the same phonetic component and accordingly similar pronunciation.Footnote ³⁶ Wang Ning also suggests the graph stands for a word meaning “release” or “clear,” although his reading is different: he renders 歝 (*lâkh) as the near-homophonous 渡 (*dâkh > du).Footnote ³⁷ If read as shi, the Wu-raven was “clearing up” Yi Yin’s throat to release him from the condition of “being unable to speak,” which is narratively consistent, as Yi Yin did talk to the Xia lord later.

In the following dialogue between Yi Yin and the Xia lord, Yi Yin largely repeated the Wu-raven’s words, as if the latter were speaking through him. Many scholars therefore followed the Tsinghua editors’ reading, understanding the character 歝 as “stay,” and attached the ability of shamanic possession to the Wu-raven. Since the Wu-raven “stayed” in Yi Yin’s throat, the bodily location of the vocal organ that controls speech, it could possibly control Yi Yin’s speech as well. As a result, scholars further interpret the conversation between Yi Yin and the Xia lord as actually a conversation between the Yi Yin-possessing Wu-raven and the Xia lord.Footnote ³⁸ Allan further translates Wu-raven as the “spirit-medium raven” and argues that Yi Yin in the text has shamanistic abilities.

Although prior interpretations found the “stay” reading able to account for the repetition element of the story, reading 歝 as zhai “stay” is questionable. The original graph is written as (罒+大+欠). The left part of the graph () is a variation of the graph or 㚖, which stands for character ze 睪 or du 斁 in oracle bones and bronze inscriptions instead of bi 奰.Footnote ³⁹ The left part also closely resembles the simplified 睪 component of shi 釋 written in other Chu manuscripts, such as (睪+心) in the Guodian manuscript Laozi A 老子甲, or (睪+又) in Qiong da yi shi 窮達以時, which supports reading it as shi “release.”Footnote ⁴⁰ In addition, although ze 睪 (*lak) and zhai 宅 (*drâk) have similar phonetic values, reading it as shi 釋 (*lhak) is also phonetically possible. Both the Old Chinese pronunciations of 睪 (*lak) and 釋 (*lhak) have a liquid initial (l), whereas 宅 (*drâk) has a dental stop (d) preceding a liquid (r). The component 睪 in other Chu manuscript characters also commonly stands for a word written with the same phonetic component today (such as examples of 釋 in Guodian manuscripts), rather than acting as a loan graph for a word of another phonetic series, as the Tsinghua editors suggested. Furthermore, the right part of the graph in question is 欠, a hieroglyph of someone opening their mouth, which is a component that usually stands for “eating,” “drinking,” or “voicing” in Chinese characters, rather than something “stay” in the throat.Footnote ⁴¹

Finally, the reading of 歝 as “stay” would render the text as “Wu-raven stayed in Xiaochen’s throat and stomach.” It would be hard to explain how a single raven can “stay” in one’s throat and stomach simultaneously. We also do not know if the early Chinese had conceptualized that a spirit or animal would occupy the medium’s throat and stomach during a possession, or whether something staying in someone’s throat and stomach implies a possession is happening in an early Chinese context.

It is therefore implausible that yi 歝 is a loan graph for the near-homophonous zhai 宅 “stay,” and understanding Chi jiu as a tale about animal possession with spirit-medium would be overemphasizing this particular reading of one character. The sentence in question (巫烏乃歝小臣之喉胃) would be better translated as “the Wu-raven then cleared Xiaochen’s throat [to relieve him from the condition of being unable to speak].” Afterward, Yi Yin talked to the Xia lord out of volition and in his own voice rather than being possessed. In light of this emendation, we could further interpret Chi jiu following the direction of it being a story concerning Yi Yin’s actions. Yi Yin should be the protagonist of this story.

Understanding Animal Speech and Grimms’ Tales Parallel

Ruling out the possibility of Yi Yin being possessed by the Wu-raven can bring out a new meaning of the Chi jiu narrative: animal speech. In the text, the Wu-raven only speaks to the other ravens about the Xia lord’s illness, not directly to Yi Yin. However, when Yi Yin talks about the Xia lord’s illness and how to cure it, he directly quotes Wu-raven’s speech, repeating it nearly word for word. The Wu-raven was addressing other ravens, not Yi Yin, yet Yi Yin could understand the communication of the ravens.

The motif of “understanding animal speech” is very rare in early Chinese literature. To be sure, we do have literary accounts about animals capable of human speech, albeit only parrots and apes.Footnote ⁴² The technicality of whether the animal speaks in human speech or the human can somehow understand animal speech is typically not considered important enough to be addressed. Moreover, “speaking animals” were still considered ominous even in the Six Dynasties (220–589 ce).Footnote ⁴³ The Chi jiu ravens largely talk among themselves, not with humans, and a special ability would be required to understand the language spoken by the ravens in such a context.

However, figures with the extraordinary ability to understand animals are also relatively uncommon in early literature. To begin with, traditional narratives about Yi Yin did not have such a motif. Roel Sterckx collects eight stories or entries from early Chinese literature about those who were supposedly able to comprehend communications between animals.Footnote ⁴⁴ Nevertheless, upon further inspection, most of those cases lack supernatural dimensions, unlike Chi jiu. For example, consider the case of Ge Lu 葛盧, the leader of a small Eastern Yi 東夷 nation named Jie 介: According to Zuo zhuan, he was able to understand the crying of a cow.Footnote ⁴⁵ However, as a leader of an Eastern Yi nation, Ge Lu would be a “barbarian” within the early Chinese political order. In early texts such as Zhou li 周禮, barbarians naturally understand animal language, since in the early Chinese view, barbarians were closer to animals than civilized humans.Footnote ⁴⁶ Likewise, those who oversaw livestock were usually believed to be able to communicate with animals; one such figure was Bo Yi 伯益, a legendary minister in charge of animal husbandry, forestry, and hunting under the sage king Shun 舜, who could talk with birds and beasts. Chi jiu’s Yi Yin is, however, very much unrelated to these figures.

In general, figures with the ability to understand animal speech in early Chinese literature are scarce and unusual. Chi jiu’s Yi Yin is an exciting but isolated case of such a motif, a detailed narrative that has almost no existing parallel in either transmitted or excavated early Chinese texts. On the other hand, far outside China, two German folktales collected by the Grimm Brothers in the Grimms’ Tales, first published in 1812, share striking similarities with the theme, elements, and even the narrative structure of Chi jiu.Footnote ⁴⁷

The first story is “The White Snake,” (“Die weiße Schlange”) labeled as KHM 17. In this story, a servant took a bite of the king’s meal—a dish of cooked white snake—despite having received a warning against doing so. The servant was granted the ability to understand the animals’ speech upon taking the bite. After being accused of stealing the queen’s ring, he left the court and traveled around the country, using this ability to hear what animals around him were talking about. The servant then saved several animals from trouble, and the animals in turn helped him to complete Herculean tasks put before him by a princess. With all the challenges completed, the princess finally fell in love with him and married him.Footnote ⁴⁸

The other story is “The Crows” (“Die Krähen,” sometimes translated as “The Ravens”).Footnote ⁴⁹ In this story, a retired soldier was robbed by two of his comrades; they beat him, gouged out his eyes, and left him tied to the gallows. Later that night, the wounded soldier overheard a flock of crows landing on the gallows, chatting about a princess’s illness and how to heal it. After the crows flew away, the soldier was able to escape. He used the knowledge he had gained to heal himself, then relieved the princess from illness using the same remedy. The two comrades noted the retired soldier’s success and tried to repeat it, only to be killed by the angry crows who discovered that someone had eavesdropped on their conversation.Footnote ⁵⁰

The similarities between these two recorded European folktales and Chi jiu, an untransmitted early Chinese story, are remarkable. Yi Yin also tasted a dish made of unusual animals, overheard the chatting of animals (also ravens), and relieved a noble from illness using what he had overheard. An elaborated comparison between all three texts, with Chi jiu as the basis for comparison is found in Table 1.

Table 1.

Comparison of Chi jiu zhi ji Tang zhi wu with two Grimm tales

Judging from the comparison, Chi jiu’s entire narrative structure is conspicuously in parallel with different sections of the two German folktales, almost like a combination of both. Furthermore, all three protagonists used a combination of luck and wit to solve the problems they were facing. The most notable narrative difference between Chi jiu and the two folktales is that it does not end with a typical “happy ending,” (although the reader would presumably be aware that Yi Yin will eventually become a well-known figure of great importance), but instead abruptly cuts to an explanation of a ritual practice.Footnote ⁵¹

Both “The White Snake” and “The Crows” share their motifs and narrative elements with broader European folkloric traditions. “The White Snake” was classified in the ATU Tale Type Index as ATU 673, “someone comes to know the language of animals through the help of/eating a snake/salmon,” a folktale type well-known in Europe and the Middle East, which exists in numerous cultural traditions.Footnote ⁵² For “The Crows,” its central plot of “blind man overhears secret remedy under tree or gallows and recovers his sight” is of ATU 613, also very common among European folktales.Footnote ⁵³ Additionally, the motif of “overhearing a secret remedy from the conversation of animals or witches,” cataloged as N452 in the Thompson Motif Index, is a widespread motif that appears in folktales from Europe to Africa to Japan, and even in Miao 苗 folklore.Footnote ⁵⁴ Chi jiu, unlike the two tales, is a unique, isolated case, and does not have any parallels within the early Chinese literary tradition. The two tales are also well transmitted in German and other European traditions, while the Chi jiu story was not transmitted in the Chinese tradition.

The two Grimm tales and Chi jiu may all be variants developed from shared themes and motifs, and the Chi jiu story might be the earliest known variant of the ATU 673 and N452 tale-types, an important discovery for folklore studies.Footnote ⁵⁵ It is worth noting that since Chu manuscripts and Grimms’ Tales originated in entirely different cultures and periods and are concerned with different stock figures, it would be implausible for a direct cross-cultural influence to have taken place. It is more probable that narrative and plot commonalities could develop in separate cultures, and certain tale-types might be more ancient and internationally common than we thought, rather than limited to European and Near Eastern storytelling traditions. The study of the “Chinese Cinderella” tale offers a similar example, a discovery that also expanded the geographical and cultural scope of a particular tale-type.Footnote ⁵⁶

In general, cross-cultural comparison can offer clues to how the motifs might best be understood within the overall context of the stories. For instance, the overall parallel of the plot across the three tales further suggests that Yi Yin very likely proposed the remedy out of his own volition, rather than being possessed by the Wu-raven. The importance and the power of the red dove soup within the plot is further emphasized as well. This new interpretation of the Chi jiu narrative would serve as an essential context for the following examination of the power of the red dove soup and how it is described in the text.

A Different Yi Yin

Establishing “beyond the Four Seas” as a phrase for expressing the all-knowing power of an ideal ruler leads to an interesting reflection. Chi jiu uses the phrase to illustrate Yi Yin’s power, but Yi Yin was not a ruler; he was a founding minister. No matter what an extraordinary figure he might have been, he cannot serve as a stand-in for an ideal ruler. Then did Chi jiu employ “beyond the Four Seas” out of its original, regal context? This is also unlikely, as the text opens with how the red doves gathered at Tang’s place and how Tang ordered the soup to be made. The narrative suggested that the red dove soup, the supernatural object that could bring the all-knowing power to whoever tasted it, was initially destined for Tang’s consumption.

However, rather than Tang enjoying the soup alone, the plot turns to Ren Huang’s intervention, which caused the power of the red dove soup—the power reserved to an ideal ruler—to fall to Yi Yin, a founding minister, and also to Ren Huang, the wife of a founding king, owing to their consumption of the soup. Here, the narrative suggests that a future minister had now been given the kingly power of knowing every corner of the world as well.Footnote ⁶⁴ The text then describes Tang’s reaction as visibly furious; he wanted to punish or kill Yi Yin no matter how far away he fled, for he had, as a minor household servant, dared to take a share of Tang’s kingly power.

The story does have a good ending. In the other two texts of the same manuscript and following Chi jiu, Yi Yin would eventually assist Tang in fulfilling his destiny and establishing a new dynasty; he would himself become a founding minister and serve under the wise king Tang. Nevertheless, the presence of the kingly power of Yi Yin is still an intended aspect of the whole three-text manuscript. Chi jiu, the first and the longest text in the manuscript, explains why a minor kitchen servant could turn into a great founding minister: He tasted the soup and thus obtained an extraordinary power. The following *Yin zhi then portrays the achievements of Yi Yin, stressing his role in the rise of Shang power. Finally, Yi Yin eventually became a great minister for Shang in *Yin gao, in which he instructed Tang to reflect on history and become a worthy ruler.

The three Yi Yin texts constitute an overarching story arc about Yi Yin’s rise to power, and eventually he became the founding minister of Shang at the end of the narrative. The theme of “founding minister” who helped the first kings establish their rule was relatively popular in the Warring States period, particularly when the shi 士 class gained in power, enjoying much better employment opportunities in the various regional states, and advocated for meritocracy.Footnote ⁶⁵ In stories celebrating the principle of meritocracy, the ministers are often described as having “unique talents,” but living in obscurity or poverty before meeting their ruler. The wise ruler recognizes their ability and raises them out of low status, and the ministers then aid the ruler to found a new dynasty. Such a theme is repeated in the stories about the founding of the Shang and Zhou dynasties and the character of the founding ministers; the conventional Yi Yin stories are part of this tradition as well.Footnote ⁶⁶ Accordingly, the theme of the founding minister often expresses both the integrity of the founding minister and the insight of the first king—the minister must be a good minister, just as the king must be an ideal king. The conventional Yi Yin stories express a similar idea: Yi Yin was initially a minor servant or cook, then Tang promoted Yi Yin from low status, and Yi Yin helped Tang as a minister in return.Footnote ⁶⁷ These stories praise the virtue and ability of both Yi Yin and Tang, both the minister and the ruler, and how each could serve as a helping hand to the other.

Compared to this conventional theme, the narrative of Chi jiu and the overarching narrative of the entire manuscript employs a very different configuration of Yi Yin. The three Yi Yin texts indeed deal with how Yi Yin rose from the position of a minor cook to a worthy minister, employing common elements from the “founding minister” theme. However, instead of covering the virtue of the king, they aim to explain why the minister is extraordinary. *Yin zhi and *Yin gao are texts that stress the importance of Yi Yin in the founding of Shang, portraying how his espionage helped Tang’s campaign. Chi jiu, in particular, becomes a potent demonstration of Yi Yin’s extraordinariness and worthiness, at the expense of Tang and Tang’s soup.

In Chi jiu, Tang did not appoint Yi Yin—then still a minor servant—as a minister, which would display Tang’s virtue in recognizing talents. It was Yi Yin himself who consumed the soup in Tang’s absence, as a forced accomplice to Ren Huang. Although this very act landed Yi Yin in trouble—being pursued by an angry king and nearly being eaten alive—he was lucky enough to be saved by another bird with supernatural power, and further took the chance to raise his worthiness in the eyes of another ruler, the Xia lord. The actual king, Tang, not only had his role downplayed but also could not monopolize his kingly power anymore, as it had already been shared by Yi Yin and Ren Huang.

The three-text manuscript, overall, becomes not only three related stories sequenced in chronological order, but a narration about Yi Yin’s personal rise as a worthy minister. His ministerial power did not come in the form of royal patronage or authorization. Rather, it was from an illicit taste of a culinary source of the royal power, a supernatural helping hand, and by turning an unfavorable situation to a favorable one in Chi jiu; and also, by working his way back to Tang’s court and eventually becoming Tang’s ally in *Yin zhi and *Yin gao. The supernatural forces present in the full arc of the story, which always worked in Yi Yin’s favor, also created a sense of fate, that Yi Yin was destined to rise higher. At this point, the manuscript departs significantly from the traditional narrative about Yi Yin the worthy minister.

Minister at the Expense of the Ruler

There are two possible reasons for why the three-text manuscript’s narrative differs greatly from the tradition Yi Yin narrative. For one, there existed a new conception regarding the status of ministers developed in Warring State China, that is, they were political actors independent of the sovereign, rather than merely servants.Footnote ⁶⁸ Thanks to the employment market that spread across the numerous regional courts, officeholders and retainers working for one court could move to another one when opportunity arises, or when the situation becomes dire. Literary and philosophical works produced in this time period often advocate such mobility and praise the independent status of shi ministers. Mengzi 孟子, in particular, often employs Yi Yin as an example of such a political actor, and even hails Yi Yin’s independence from both Tang’s court and Jie’s court in the form of moving between the two courts: “Yi Yin was the one who approached Tang five times and approached Jie five times” 五就湯，五就桀者，伊尹也.Footnote ⁶⁹ Similarly, the three-text manuscript produced an overarching plotline in which Yi Yin acted independently between Tang and Jie. In this narrative, Yi Yin the minor servant was driven out from the Tang’s court due to misconduct yet leveraged the situation to gain the trust of Jie, an adversary of his former master. He then returned to Tang with information gathered at Jie’s court, helped Tang’s cause, and again earned a respected position in Tang’s court. In short, “founding minister” and “defecting minister” are the two sides of the same coin, two reflections of the same “independent minister” ideology. The original compiler presumably repurposed Chi jiu within this particular pro-ministerial context.

A second, and related, possibility is that the three-text manuscript also aligns with an existing but unconventional narrative, Yi Yin the minister-usurper. This narrative exists in both transmitted literature such as Shi ji, Mengzi (which is employed in conjunction with Yi Yin the independent minister) and manuscript texts such as the Bamboo Annals 竹書紀年. According to these sources, after Tang passed away, Yi Yin once acted as a regent for Tang’s unenlightened grandson and successor, Tai Jia 太甲. Unlike similar regent figures such as Shun or the Duke of Zhou 周公 (fl. eleventh century bce) who hold the supreme administrative power while still respect their kings, Yi Yin banished Tai Jia from the court for three or seven years on the grounds of incompetence. Only when Tai Jia fully repented and redeemed himself did Yi Yin welcome him back.Footnote ⁷⁰ In the Bamboo Annals’ version of the story, Yi Yin even directly usurped the throne and claimed it for himself until a returning Tai Jia murdered him. Whether Yi Yin directly usurped the throne or not, the narrative implies that Yi Yin’s extraordinary ability and rulership was on par with that of wise rulers, and he was more of a ruler than a minister in both versions. In this narrative, Yi Yin was not merely a minister for Shang, but someone with a more profound status. Whether this minister-usurper narrative reflected historical truth about early Shang politics or was just a political fable produced by proponents of ministerial power in the Warring States period is still a matter of debate, though some accounts do suggest that Yi Yin was closely related to the Shang royal house.Footnote ⁷¹ Chi jiu’s narrative about Yi Yin receiving kingly power possibly reflects such an unconventional tradition, which could also connect back to the portrayal of Yi Yin as an independent minister within the three-text context via emphasizing Yi Yin’s powerful status.

In either case, the manuscript could only construct this unique plotline about Yi Yin’s rise through compilation efforts. Without *Yin zhi and *Yin gao, Chi jiu remains a historiola in function; without Chi jiu, *Yin zhi and *Yin gao are still two Shang shu-style texts that seem to follow the conventional Yi Yin narrative. After compiling the three texts into one manuscript, the texts gained new layers of interpretative possibility within the new chronological-sequential structure. *Yin zhi and *Yin gao frame the figure of Yi Yin in Chi jiu as an extraordinary minister-to-be; Chi jiu, in turn, mythologizes what makes Yi Yin a wise minister, offers a mythical foundation for the plot, and refutes the conventional narrative that Yi Yin’s power came from royal patronage. The three-text Yi Yin manuscript also demonstrates the importance of compilation in the textual production process; the manuscript only went through the most basic compilation practices—the compiler had no interest in editing the historiola parts of Chi jiu—yet the compilation nonetheless inscribes the individual texts with new meanings in an overarching plot.

Overall, the three-text manuscript generates a unique story arc about Yi Yin, glorifies Yi Yin with a mythical explanation of his rise, and describes him as bestowed with kingly powers, while overshadowing Tang’s role. Yi Yin is now an extraordinary minister with independent agency and could be on par with the famous sage king. The manuscript is also a compiling enterprise, recontextualizing the supernatural elements of Chi jiu into the historical narrative about Yi Yin and creating a unique political narrative regarding the founding of Shang, in which Yi Yin’s extraordinariness, instead of Tang’s virtue, took the central role. We may also speculate that the compiler of the three texts belonged to the shi class, whose members had an interest in foregrounding the roles ministers played and in promoting their importance.Footnote ⁷²