Yan Ying

Also known as Yan Zi · Zi Zhong · Yan Pingzhong

Yan Ying, courtesy name Zhong and posthumously named Ping, is also called Yan Pingzhong or Master Yan; he came from Yiwei in Lai, and his father Yan Ruo was a high officer of Qi. He served three rulers of Qi, Dukes Ling, Zhuang and Jing, and was noted for frugality: the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) says that as chief minister he never ate two meat dishes at a meal and his concubines wore no silk. In 548 BCE, when Cui Zhu killed Duke Zhuang, Yan went into Cui's house, laid the duke's head on his lap and wept, and Cui did not dare to harm him. His sharp answers to the mockery he met as envoy to Chu, and the tale of two peaches that killed three knights, are preserved in the later compilation Annals of Master Yan (Yanzi chunqiu). Sima Qian gave him a joint biography with Guan Zhong and wrote that, were Yan alive, he would gladly hold the whip for his carriage.