Nie Zheng (聶政; died 397 BCE) was a Chinese Assassin who lived during the Warring States period. He was named as one of the "Five Great Assassins" by the historian Sima Qian in the Record of the Grand Historian and recognized as one of their forebears by the Chinese Brotherhood.
According to Sima Qian's account, after committing murder in his hometown of Zhi (軹; within modern-day Jiyuan, Henan[1]), he went into hiding in Qi, where he scraped up a meagre living as a butcher to support his family. Yan Zhongzi (嚴仲子), an official of Han, sought him out to enlist his service against the Han chancellor Xialei (俠累). Although Nie Zheng initially rebuffed him given the need to care for his aging mother, he changed his mind when his mother eventually passed away from natural causes.
In a solo operation, he successfully assassinated Xialei but severely disfigured himself before committing suicide in hopes that his role would forever remain anonymous so that no harm would come to his elder sister. Despite this extreme measure, his sister publicly identified his corpse at risk of her life, believing that his was a noble deed and unwilling to allow his memory to be lost to history.
Biography[]
What follows is the legend of Nie Zheng as recounted in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian.[2]
Legend[]
Nie Zheng was originally from a small town called Zhi Deep Well Village (軹深井里), but he fled to the State of Qi with his mother and elder sister to escape reprisals after he committed a murder. There, he took on the vocation of a butcher.[2]
Devotion to his mother[]
A long time passed until one day Yan Zhongzi (嚴仲子), an official of Puyang who served Marquess Ai of Han, ran afoul of the Han chancellor Xialei (俠累). Fearing that he would be executed, Zhongzi fled Han to roam the other states in search of help eliminating his rival back home. When he arrived in Qi, the locals shared rumours that Nie Zheng was a courageous knight who was hiding among butchers to elude some vendetta.[2]
So Zhongzi went to Nie Zheng's residence and knocked at the door to make his request. Turned away several times, he resorted to appealing directly to Nie Zheng's mother instead with wine. As the vibe turned jubilant from alcohol, he brought out a copious sum of gold as a gift of blessings and respect to her. Nie Zheng was startled by the exuberant offer yet firmly refused it even while thanking him. When Zhongzi adamantly persisted, Nie Zheng explained, "I am fortunate to have a mom though our family is poor. I moved in here and became a dog butcher so that night and day I am able to scrape up victuals to take care of my mother. I can provide for my loved one sufficiently, and I do not dare to adopt your gifts."[2]
At this, Zhongzi moved aside from others' earshot, so as to tell Nie Zheng this:[2]
"I have grievances [awaiting recompense], and I have travelled across numerous princely states. Having arrived in Qi, lowly as I am I happened to hear of your considerable sense of justice. Thus I thought to forward this gold to you for the sake of your honour's grain expenses, so that I might become your respectful friend. How could I dare to have any further hopes or requests?"
Whereupon Nie Zheng replied, "That is why I lowered my ambitions and humiliated myself to live in the market slums as a butcher, merely wishing to take care of my mom. As long as mom is here, I, Zheng, cannot yet dare to commit my life to someone else." Still, Zhongzi fervently continued to offer accommodations, but Nie Zheng could not be swayed to accept the gift. In the end, the official-in-exile exceeded all decorum between host and guest and had to leave.[2]
Pledging to Yan Zhongzi[]
A long time passed, and eventually Nie Zheng's mother died. Once she had been buried and he had taken off his mourning clothes, Nie Zheng said to himself:[2]
"Alas! I am but a man of the slums who wields a knife to butcher meat. And yet Yan Zhongzi, a minister of the nobles, made light of travelling a thousand li and condescended his station to make my friendship. My reasons for treating him the way I did was too shallow. I do not yet have any great deeds to my name, yet Yan Zhongzi offered a hundred gold to bless my mother with long life. Though I refused to accept it, it nevertheless demonstrated how deeply he knows me. The virtuous man, incited into but a trifling grievance, put his heartfelt trust into someone from such a remote place as me—how can I be content leaving this with nothing but silence? Besides, back then when he needed me, I could only tend to mom. Now that mom's time in this world has ended, I should apply myself to a friend who truly understands me."
Thereupon, he headed west to Puyang. Meeting Yan Zhongzi, he explained, "Back then, the reason why I would not entreat you was only because my mom was still here. Today, my mother's time in this world has unfortunately ended. Who was it that you wished to take revenge on? Please allow me to undertake this matter!"[2] Yan Zhongzi laid it out:[2]
"My vendetta is against the Han chancellor Xialei. Xialei is also the paternal uncle of the Han ruler. His clansmen are tremendous in number; the troops guarding his residence even more so. I wished to dispatch someone to assassinate him but have been unsuccessful in the end. On this day, you have fortunately not forsaken me. Please bolster your mission with my elite cavalrymen as your wingmen."
But Nie Zheng declined the reinforcement, reasoning:[2]
"The distance between Han and Wey[note 1] is not that long, and the chancellor we presently plan to kill is also the ruler's relative. Under these circumstances, we cannot bring a lot of people. With a lot of people, we would not be able to avoid an accident. When an accident occurs, word will leak out. Word leaking out means Han rousing the enmity of the entire nation against you. Then how would you possibly avoid peril?"
Thus while thanking the cavalrymen, he departed to conduct the mission alone.[2]
Assassination of Xialei and suicide[]
Wielding a sword into Han, Nie Zheng arrived before Xialei's estate, where his quarry was seated inside, protected by numerous soldiers and their halberds. The assailant charged straight inside, making a beeline up a flight of stairs to Xialei and stabbed him to death. Chaos broke out everywhere as his guards retaliated. Nie Zheng single-handedly cut down scores of enemies, all while screaming ferociously. At the end of the ordeal, he shredded flabs of his own skin, gashed his own eyes, and disemboweled himself, whereupon he summarily died.[2]
The Han government took Nie Zheng's body, exposed it out at the market, and offered money for his identification, yet no one knew who he was. They then broadened their search by sending out an announcement that anyone who could name the killer of Chancellor Xialei would be awarded with a thousand gold. A long time passed, and still, no one could come forward with any information.[2]
Post-mortem: Denied oblivion by a sister's love[]
Nie Zheng's elder sister, Nie Rong (聶榮), heard that someone had assassinated the chancellor of Han and that the whole nation, failing to find out either the killer's surname or given name, had displayed his corpse to the public and was offering a thousand gold for his identification. She thought to herself tearfully, "Could he be my little brother? Alas, Yan Zhongzi knows my brother!" Rousing herself, she journeyed to the capital of Han.[2]
At the market, discovering with horror that the deceased was truly none other than her brother, Nie Rong threw herself on his corpse and cried in agony. She wailed out loud, "It's Nie Zheng from a place known as Zhi Deep Well Village!" All the passersby around her said, "This person brutalized our nation's chancellor. His Majesty has offered a thousand gold as a reward for his full name. Has the lady not heard? Why would you dare to come and recognize him?"[2]
Nie Rong acknowledged this and explained:[2]
"I have heard. Nonetheless, the reason why Zheng suffered the stain and humiliation of throwing himself into a slummy trade was all for our mom's wellbeing. I myself had not yet been married off then. Since our mother passed away naturally, I married a husband while Yan Zhongzi then went out of his way to find and pick my little brother out among the destitute to befriend, gracing him with profound kindness. What could he have done?! The knight died for the sake of the friend who truly understands him, and because I am still around today, he terminated his life by exacting the most extreme punishment on himself [so that he would be disfigured beyond recognition]. How could I, out of fear of the cruellest form of execution, confine my virtuous little brother's name to oblivion?!"
Her words greatly alarmed all the Han onlookers at the market. She screamed out to Heaven three times and at last succumbed to her grief, dying at Nie Zheng's side.[2]
When Jin, Chu, Qi, and Wey heard the news, they said:[2]
"It was not only Zheng who had ability, but also that headstrong girl of an older sister. If he earnestly could have known of his sister's unquenchable will, that she would not stand for the ignominy of his exposed bones, that she would certainly go a thousand miles past all obstacles to sunder his name, and that brother and sister would perish together at the Han market... he perhaps would not have dared to pledge himself to Yan Zhongzi. Yan Zhongzi can also be said to really know people and then to attain them as his knights!"
Legacy[]
Alongside Zhuan Zhu, Yu Rang, Cao Mo, and Jing Ke, Nie Zheng was named by the historian Sima Qian as one of China's earliest Assassins. He recounted their exploits in his magnum opus, the Records of the Grand Historian, and they were known to later generations as "the Five Great Assassins".[3]
Appearances[]
- Assassin's Creed: Dynasty (mentioned only)
Notes[]
- ↑ The state Wèi (衛) is commonly spelled Wey in contravention of the Hanyu Pinyin romanization standard to distinguish from the more prominent state Wèi (魏) because the two polities' modern Mandarin pronunciations are homophonic. In ancient times, their pronunciations were distinct and remain so in some other Chinese languages today.
References[]
- ↑ 聶政 （戰國時期刺客) (in Chinese). Baidu Baike. Retrieved on 9 April 2022.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 Sima Qian (94 BCE). 太史公書: 刺客列傳 [Record of the Grand Historian: Biographies of Assassins] (in Chinese). Chinese Text Project. Retrieved on 19 December 2023.
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Dynasty – The Hidden Ones (Part 2)
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