Makers › Physician / Medical Master
Chunyu Yi
Early Western Han physician and granary director of Qi whose daughter Tiying petitioned the emperor to save him, and whose twenty-five case records survive in the Shiji
Mural of the event “Tiying Saves Her Father”, which this person took part in.
In 167 BCE, the thirteenth year of Emperor Wen of Han, Chunyu Yi, granary director of Qi, was convicted of an offence carrying mutilating punishment and taken to Chang'an. His youngest daughter Tiying followed him and memorialised the throne, offering to become a government slave to redeem his punishment. Moved by her plea, Emperor Wen abolished mutilating punishments, and the chancellor Zhang Cang and others then proposed the replacement penalties.
Also known as Taicang Gong · Cang Gong
Chunyu Yi came from Linzi in Qi and served as director of the Qi state granary, which is why he was called Master Cang, the Granary Lord. The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) says he loved medicine from youth, and in 180 BCE he became a pupil of Yang Qing of his own commandery, who passed on the pulse writings and drug lore attributed to the Yellow Emperor and Bian Que; afterwards he treated patients and could foretell whether they would live. He travelled among the princes' courts and sometimes refused to treat people, which made enemies. Under Emperor Wen he was accused and sent to Chang'an to suffer mutilating punishment; his youngest daughter Tiying went with him and petitioned to become a government slave in his place, and the emperor pardoned him and abolished mutilation that year. Questioned later by imperial edict about his practice, he answered with twenty-five case records giving each patient's name, symptoms, pulse and outcome, preserved in full in his Shiji biography.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; physician under Emperor Wen of Han
- 167 BCETiying Saves Her FatherTook part
- 167 BCETiying Petitions the Throne in Chang'an