Xie An

Also known as Zi Anshi

Xie An, courtesy name Anshi, came from Yangxia in Chen commandery (modern Taikang, Henan). Famous from youth, he refused office and lived at Dongshan in Kuaiji among friends such as Wang Xizhi, joining the Orchid Pavilion gathering of 353. Past forty he became adjutant to the general Huan Wen, the origin of the phrase about rising again from the eastern hills. When the ageing Huan Wen sought the nine honours that herald usurpation, Xie An and Wang Tanzhi stalled until the matter lapsed, and Xie went on to head the Department of State Affairs. In 383, as Fu Jian of the Former Qin invaded, he sent his brother Xie Shi and nephew Xie Xuan with eighty thousand men, who broke the Qin army at the Fei River; he read the victory dispatch over a game of go without a change of expression, but broke his clog on the threshold as he went inside. Edged out by Sima Daozi, he withdrew to Guangling and died in 385 aged sixty-six, named Wenjing.