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Cheng Ying
Friend of Zhao Shuo who, in the Shiji account, hid and raised the Zhao orphan Zhao Wu and then took his own life
Before a thatched village house stands a stone well with a wooden bucket, beside a pole with plain cloth drying, smoke rising from a hearth inside and a dog sleeping at the left; a woman carries two buckets along a path by rice fields, with green hills beyond.
Also known as Cheng Ying, friend of Zhao Shuo
Cheng Ying of Jin was, according to the Shiji's Hereditary House of Zhao, a friend of Zhao Shuo. When Tu'an Gu wiped out the Zhao clan, Zhao Shuo's widow bore a posthumous son. Cheng Ying and the retainer Gongsun Chujiu substituted another infant; Gongsun died with the decoy while Cheng Ying hid the real orphan, Zhao Wu, in the mountains for fifteen years. After Han Jue spoke to Duke Jing, Zhao Wu was restored. Once Zhao Wu came of age, Cheng Ying killed himself to report to Zhao Dun and Gongsun below. The story is absent from the Zuo Zhuan. He is the central figure of 'The Orphan of Zhao'.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; per the Shiji active c. 597–583 BCE