Writers › Cultural Persona
Huangshi Gong
The old man on the bridge at Xiapi who, in the Shiji, gives Zhang Liang the Taigong's Art of War and names himself the yellow stone below Mount Gucheng.
In lantern light and drifting smoke, a row of painted theatrical masks stands on a wooden rail beneath a glowing paper dragon lantern and hanging red lanterns; a folding screen painted with a river, a bridge and hills stands at the right, with a bronze burner and small lamps on the floor.
Also known as The Old Man on the Bridge · Old Man of the Yi Bridge
- Roles
- Cultural Persona
Huangshi Gong (Master Yellow Stone) is a cultural persona grown from the Shiji story of the old man on the bridge. During the Qin, the fugitive Zhang Liang met an old man at Xiapi who dropped his shoe off the bridge, made Liang fetch it, and after three dawn meetings gave him the Taigong's Art of War, saying that thirteen years later the yellow stone below Mount Gucheng would be himself; Zhang Liang later found the stone and enshrined it. The old man's identity is unknowable; later tradition named him Huangshi Gong and attributed the military text Sanlue to him. This entry registers a cultural persona, not a historically verified individual.
Life and times
Dates First attested in the Western Han Shiji; the Sanlue attribution is catalogued in the Tang-compiled Book of Sui