Jiang Ziya Descends the Mountain

O n Mount Kunlun the Primordial Heavenly King called his disciple to the dais and told him the one thing no student of immortality wants to hear. You were born with a thin fate, he said, and the road of the immortals is closed to you; there is only worldly fortune in what lies ahead. But the count of the house of Shang is run out, and the house of Zhou is rising, and I have work for you below. Go down. Serve the true king, take the rank of general and minister, and invest the gods for me when the time comes — so that forty years on this mountain are not thrown away. Jiang Ziya was seventy-two years old. He had climbed up at thirty-two, and now he was being sent back down, a lifetime of cultivation cashed out for a career in the dust. He begged to stay. The master did not bend. At the foot of the mountain the Immortal of the South Pole gave him the only comfort on offer: the chance will not come twice, heaven's number is already fixed, and no one dodges it — go down, and when the work is done there will be a day to come back up. On Mount Kunlun, Yuanshi Tianzun summoned Jiang Ziya and said: "You were born with a thin destiny; the way of the immortals is hard for you to complete. You can only receive the blessings of the human world. The number of the house of Shang is exhausted, and the house of Zhou will rise. Take my place, descend the mountain and invest the gods, aid an enlightened ruler, and be a general and minister — so that your forty years of cultivation on the mountain are not wasted." Jiang Ziya pleaded: "I left home in true sincerity and have endured hard years; I beg you, master, to have great mercy and lead me back from confusion to awakening." He said, "I came up the mountain at thirty-two, and now I have idled away to seventy-two." But the decree stood. He took his leave, and the Immortal of the South Pole (Nanji Xianweng) told him: "The chance is hard to meet and the moment cannot be lost; heaven's number is fixed and cannot be escaped. Though you go down now, when your work is complete there will of itself be a day to return."

So the sage came down into the world of dust with a mandate to remake heaven and not a coin to his name. He made for Zhaoge, the Shang capital, because he remembered he had a sworn elder brother there from the years before the mountain — Song Yiren — and a man with nowhere else to go goes to whoever once called him brother. Song took him in gladly, housed him and fed him, and then, surveying the old bachelor under his roof, decided the kindest thing he could do was marry him off. There was a woman of the Ma family, sixty-eight years old and never wed. A yellow-flower maiden of sixty-eight, Song said, without apparent irony, talent and looks both, a perfect match. The wedding was made. Jiang Ziya, who had gone up Kunlun to leave the dusty world behind, was now a householder planted squarely back in it, with a wife who expected him to earn. Jiang Ziya took his leave of the Immortal of the South Pole and thought privately where he might go. He suddenly remembered that in Zhaoge he had a sworn elder brother of benevolence, Song Yiren, and decided he would go and rely on him. Song Yiren received him. Later Song said: "The daughter of Ma Hong has both talent and looks and would suit you well, worthy brother; she is moreover my adopted younger sister — a yellow-flower maiden of sixty-eight years in her household." And so the marriage was arranged.

A householder needs a trade, and Song Yiren kept finding him one. First it was bamboo sieves. Jiang Ziya loaded a carrying-pole with them, walked them around all day, and brought the same pole home again — one load out, one load back, not a sieve sold. His wife met him at the door. A bamboo sieve is a thing every house under heaven uses, Ma-shi said; it takes a rare man to fail at selling one and then come home to complain about it. Next it was flour. He set out with two baskets slung on a horse, stopped to rest, and left the lead rope looped over the animal's neck. The horse bolted, dragged the baskets fifty feet, spilled the flour across the road, and a gust of wild wind swept clean away whatever was left. He came back empty again. It is not that you are useless, his wife told him — you really are a rice-bag and a clothes-rack. A living had to be made, and Song Yiren set him up in trade. First, bamboo sieves: Jiang Ziya carried a load out and brought the same load back — "one load goes, and still one load comes home." Ma-shi said: "A bamboo sieve is a thing used everywhere under heaven; not only can you not sell it, you come back with false complaints." Next, flour: he flung his carrying-pole down by the roadside, let the rope loop over the horse's neck; the horse dragged the two flour-baskets fifty or sixty feet, the flour spilled on the ground, and a blast of wild wind swept it perfectly clean. Ma-shi said: "It is not that you are useless — and still you blame me. You truly are a rice-bag and a clothes-rack."

“He came down the mountain to make an emperor and unmake a dynasty. He would start by keeping the calendar for the man he had come to destroy.”

Then Song set him up with an eatery. Jiang Ziya cooked and laid the food out and waited; from dawn to mid-morning not so much as a ghost came to the door. Then the sky opened. A downpour, and behind it a wet heat that turned the day into a steamer — the pork and mutton and the prepared dishes cooked in their own spoilage, the pastries went sour, the wine turned to vinegar. He carried the ruin home. Song, who would not give up on him, staked him next to a drove — pigs and sheep, cattle and horses, driven to market. The herd was seized at the gate: trading livestock this way broke the ordinance, and the whole lot was confiscated to the state. Jiang Ziya came back to his brother empty once more. Time and again you have shown me kindness, he said, and every venture I touch comes to nothing. He did not raise his voice. He had spent forty years learning to sit still while heaven did as it pleased, and heaven was not done with him yet. Song Yiren then opened an eatery for him. From morning until the hour of si, not even a ghost came to the door. Then came a downpour; the pork, mutton, and dishes, steamed by the summer heat, at once turned foul — the pastries spoiled, the wine soured. Next Song staked him to a drove of pigs and sheep, cattle and horses; but the animals were seized — "This breaks the prohibition against the law — arrest them" — and the livestock were all confiscated to the government. Jiang Ziya said: "Again and again I have received my elder brother's generous kindness, and every single venture has come to nothing, ending only in loss."

At last Jiang Ziya set up the one thing he was genuinely good at. On a chosen day he opened a divination stall by the south gate of Zhaoge — fates read, fortunes cast — and then sat behind his brushes and hexagrams for four or five months while no one came, a seventy-year-old with a single skill left and no one to sell it to. Then he read a fate right. And another, each one coming true down to the last copper coin, and the thing turned overnight. Zhaoge went loud with his name; soldiers and townsfolk crowded the stall to have a fortune cast at half an ounce of silver a head. The man heaven had sent down to invest the gods was, for the moment, telling woodcutters where their next meal was coming from. Jiang Ziya chose an auspicious day and opened his stall. Time slipped by like a finger snuffing a flame, and for four or five months no one came to have a fortune told or a hexagram cast. Then his hour came, and he set all of Zhaoge astir: soldiers and civilians alike all came to have their fates read and their divinations cast — five-tenths of silver for a single fortune.

Now, outside that same south gate, in the Xuanyuan Tomb, there lived a jade-pipa spirit — one of the demon-things bound to the thousand-year fox that now wore the skin of the king's favorite, Daji. She had come into Zhaoge to visit her sister in the palace, and by night she fed on the palace women. Passing the stall where the whole city stood in line, she took it into her head to test the famous diviner. She shifted her shape and became a woman in heavy mourning white, swaying at the waist as she came forward. Make way, gentlemen, she said, soft and sorrowful. Let me have my fortune told. Outside the south gate, in the Xuanyuan Tomb, there was a jade-pipa spirit. She had come to the city of Zhaoge to see Daji, and by night she devoured the palace women. Transforming herself, the demon became a woman clothed in heavy mourning, who swayed her waist and said: "Make way a moment, gentlemen — let me, a lone woman, have a fortune told."

Jiang Ziya took her wrist to read the pulse, and forty years of Kunlun answered under his fingers. He drew the prior-heaven breath up out of his cinnabar field and threw it into his eyes — the fire-wheel golden eyes that see a thing for exactly what it is — and pinned her demon-light where it stood, so she could not slip her shape and bolt. There was nothing to hand but the purple stone inkstone on his table. He caught it up and brought it down on the crown of her head with a crack that spat her brains out and splashed blood down her mourning-white collar. And she did not die. A demon of her years does not die of a stone. What the crowd saw was a fortune-teller caving in a woman's skull. The fortune-teller has beaten someone to death, they screamed, and closed around the stall, layer on layer, to seize him. Jiang Ziya seized the woman's pulse at the inch, bar, and cubit positions, raised the prior-heaven primal breath from his cinnabar field up into his fire-eyes and golden pupils, and nailed the demon-light fast. Having nothing in his hand, with only a purple stone inkstone at his table, he snatched up the stone inkstone and struck the crown of the demon's head with a single crack, so that her brains burst out and blood stained her collar — yet she did not die. The people all cried out: "The fortune-teller has beaten someone to death!" and packed thick, layer upon layer, around his divination stall.

They hauled him off to answer for a murder, and the matter climbed the ranks until it reached the Star-Plucking Tower and the ear of King Zhou himself. The grand minister Bi Gan waited on the decree, and the order came down: let the diviner drag the woman up to the tower to face the throne. King Zhou looked at the body and saw a woman. She has the shape of a person, he said, not a demon — where is the flaw in her? If Your Majesty wants the demon to show its true form, Jiang Ziya answered, have firewood brought and let me refine it out of her. They stacked the wood and lit it. For two full watches the fire took her from head to foot, and when it burned down she was not so much as scorched. Two hours in the flame and not a scab on her, the king said to Bi Gan — this is truly a monster. He was seized and brought up, and Bi Gan waited at the Star-Plucking Tower for the decree; the order issued: "Have the diviner drag the woman up to the Star-Plucking Tower to see the throne." Jiang Ziya dragged the demon up. The king said: "I observe that this woman has a human form and is no demon — where is her flaw?" Jiang Ziya said: "If Your Majesty wishes the demon to reveal its true form, have several loads of firewood brought and refine this demon, and its true shape will appear of itself." Jiang Ziya refined the demon with fire; after burning for two watches, its whole body, top to bottom, was not the least bit scorched. King Zhou said to his prime minister Bi Gan: "I have watched the fierce fire burn for two watches, and its whole body is not charred — this is truly a monster."

Then Jiang Ziya called up the true fire — not common flame but the three-samadhi fire, the essence and breath and spirit of a lifetime's cultivation, that comes pouring out of a man's own eyes and nose and mouth. No demon endures that. Thunder crossed thunder in one great clap, and when the fire died and the smoke thinned there was no woman on the tower at all: only a jade pipa lying on the boards, her true shape, laid bare. And so the strategist heaven had sent down to unmake a dynasty began, as such careers begin, with a small office and a stipend. King Zhou had the jade pipa carried up before him and gave the order — let Jiang Shang hear the throne appoint him: grand master of the lower grade, and by special grant Overseer of the Directorate of Astronomy, to attend upon the court. He had come down the mountain to make an emperor and unmake a dynasty. He would start by keeping the calendar for the man he had come to destroy. Jiang Ziya used the three-samadhi true fire to burn this demon. This fire was no common fire: it spewed out from the eyes, the nose, and the mouth, being essence, breath, and spirit refined into samadhi — how could this demon endure it? Thunderclaps crossed one another; with a single ringing crack the fire went out and the smoke cleared, and there appeared a jade pipa. The Son of Heaven decreed: "Bring the jade pipa up onto the tower. Jiang Shang, hear the throne confer office upon you: you are appointed a grand master of the lower rank, and specially granted the post of Overseer of the Directorate of Astronomy, to serve in attendance at court."