Performers › Musicians
Gao Jianli
Yan zhu player and friend of Jing Ke who played at the Yi River farewell and later tried to strike the First Emperor with his zhu.
On a flat rock above a waterfall, a seven-string zither and a bamboo flute lie on a spread of blue-green cloth; beyond, a waterfall pours into a churning teal pool among misty peaks, with pine branches arching at the top left.
Also known as Zhu-player of Yan
Gao Jianli was a man of Yan in the late Warring States period, skilled at the zhu, a struck zither. He drank in the Yan markets with Jing Ke and a dog butcher, singing and weeping together. In 227 BCE, at the Yi River farewell for Jing Ke's mission to assassinate the king of Qin, Gao played the zhu while Jing Ke sang of the cold wind over the Yi. After Qin conquered Yan and unified the realm he hid as a hired labourer under a false name, until his playing brought him to the Qin court, where the First Emperor had him blinded but kept him as a musician. He weighted his zhu with lead and swung it at the emperor, missed, and was executed.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active c. 227 BCE, killed after attempting to assassinate the First Emperor after 221 BCE