Ministers › Exemplary Magistrates
Ximen Bao
Wei magistrate of Ye under Marquis Wen who ended the custom of offering brides to the river god and, by Sima Qian's account, dug channels from the Zhang River to water the district
In spring fields beside a canal, a wooden water wheel turns as water pours down, many small farmers work in the flooded paddies, and a plain sedan chair stands on the path along the bank, with village houses and green hills in the distance.
Also known as Zhan Guo Wei Wen Hou Ye Ling
Ximen Bao, of the early Warring States state of Wei, served Marquis Wen as magistrate of Ye. A passage added to the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) by Chu Shaosun tells how the local elders, clerks and shamans of Ye extorted money each year to marry a girl to the river god. On the day of the wedding Ximen Bao declared the bride too plain and had the old shaman, her disciples and an elder thrown in to carry the news, after which no one proposed the ceremony again. He also had the people cut twelve channels bringing Zhang River water to their fields. The Shiji's treatise on rivers and canals credits him with enriching Wei's lands north of the Yellow River this way, though the History of the Han (Hanshu) assigns the Zhang irrigation works to Shi Qi, a later magistrate of Ye. The Han Feizi says he was hot-tempered and wore a soft leather cord to remind himself to slow down.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; magistrate of Ye under Marquis Wen of Wei