The grandee who argued that a chanyu should be received as a guest and not a subject. He won, was painted on the wall of honoured ministers while still alive, and was driven to poison two years later.
The chanyu is not reached by our calendar, so he is styled a matching state. Give him the rites of one who is not a subject, above the vassal kings, and yield the formal point rather than hold him as a subject.Xiao Wangzhi in the debate over the chanyu's rank before the audience of 51 BCE; Hanshu, juan 78, Biography of Xiao Wangzhi (the edict carried out in juan 94 lower)
Appears in
Relations
- Huhanye Chanyu client — He took up the chanyu's cause against the Chancellor and the Imperial Secretary, and the emperor's edict set the rank and the guest rite as Wangzhi had asked.
Myth vs record
Xiao Wangzhi was the honoured regent of the young Emperor Yuan, safe in the favour he had won.
He won the great rank argument, and was painted on the wall of the Qilin Pavilion from his likeness while still alive and still in the room, the tenth figure on it. Two years after the old emperor died, the secretaries Hong Gong and Shi Xian had him arrested; his wife said the summons could not be the emperor's will, his student Zhu Yun bade him die, and he asked for the poison at once so as not to be kept long a-dying. The young emperor struck his hands, said he had killed his best tutor, sent back the midday meal already found served, and wept where the court could see him (Hanshu, juan 78; juan 54).