Traditional Chinese is made up of characters that are like building blocks. However, a simple inversion of these characters can drastically change their meanings and implications, which can be crucial in some special situations.
Turning the tide in battle by changing the Chinese characters
Zeng Guofan, a famous general in the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912), led his troops to fight with the Taiping army, but he was defeated over and over again. He once drafted a letter asking Emperor Xianfeng for reinforcements, and one of the sentences said: “Many times my army has fought and been defeated.”
After reading the draft, his advisor suggested that the sentence be rephrased: “Many times my army has been defeated and still keeps fighting.” (the sequence of four characters was changed) With this change, the tone of the letter was completely different, although the fact it described was the same. After reading it, Zeng Guofan praised it greatly: “The change of a sentence is worth a thousand pieces of gold.” Sure enough, after the submission of the request, not only did Zeng Guofan and his general Bao Chao retain their posts despite repeated failures, but they were also recognized by Emperor Xianfeng for their loyalty and persistence.
A case of exam fraud
Here is another example of reordering characters. In the late Qing Dynasty (1858), a famous case of fraud occurred in one of the governmental examinations. A student named Luo Hongcheng bribed family members of the chief examiner, Bai Jun, in an attempt to secure a higher score in the exam. The facts were uncovered eventually, and as the chief examiner, Bai Jun was only guilty of dereliction of duty. But his straightforward nature had offended Su Shun, who was a powerful person in the court.
In an attempt to spare Bai Jun from the death penalty, a minister in the cabinet prepared a report in which he wrote: “Although the crime cannot be pardoned by the law, there are extenuating circumstances.” When the report was submitted, Su Shun reversed his sentence and wrote: “Although there are extenuating circumstances, the crime cannot be pardoned by the law.” The sequence of eight characters was changed. Eventually, Bai Jun was beheaded.
A fisherman’s tale
The same kind of shift occurred in another case that drastically changed the result. During the Guangxu period (1871-1908), there was a fisherman, a famous filial son, who killed his father’s concubine to avenge his mother. The case seemed closed, with the Zhejiang governor, Liu Bingzhang, unable to intervene. At this time, a member of the governor’s writing staff surnamed Nian read the case file and suggested that the draft of the verdict be changed from: “Although there are extenuating circumstances, the crime cannot be pardoned by the law” to: “Although the crime cannot be pardoned by the law, there are extenuating circumstances.” With this shift, the meaning of the verdict changed dramatically, and the fisherman escaped from death.
A lesson in diplomacy
Sometimes a change in a sentence can completely change the reader’s feelings. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty (1661-1722), General Shang Kexi went to the capital to report on his duties. The Empress Dowager, recognizing his filial piety, rewarded his mother with a robe of silk brocade with a sable collar.
However, Shang Kexi’s mother was his father’s second wife, and he was raised by his father’s first wife, which meant that he had two mothers — his biological mother and his adoptive mother. When he took the robe home, the two women liked it very much, and both wanted to keep it, so they quarreled over it. As a filial son, Shang Kexi could not offend anyone. In anxiety, he prepared an official letter in which he described how his two mothers fought for the robe and begged the Empress Dowager to simply take it back.
Before submitting it, Shang Kexi showed it to his good friend Jin Guang. Jin Guang read it and thought that the letter could cause trouble. If what the letter described was true, not only would the Empress Dowager take back the robe — which would be a disgrace to the Shang family — but also, more seriously, it might make the Empress Dowager angry.
Jinguang bowed his head and pondered for a moment, then changed the characters ”fought endlessly for the robe” to “repeatedly yielded the opportunity to own this robe” (change of four characters) to describe what was happening between the two women. By this change, the two jealous women became good mothers of virtue and courtesy.
After the official letter was submitted, the Empress Dowager did not blame Shang Kexi for his request to return her gift. On the contrary, she blamed herself for not knowing the true identities of Shang Kexi’s mothers and decided to reward him with another robe, so that each of the two women might have one. The rearranging of the characters not only preserved the favor of the Empress Dowager, but also increased the social status of the House of Shang, and pacified the dispute between the two mothers, which can be said to be a win-win situation.
In the ancient Chinese court, the clever use of Chinese characters had the power to alter outcomes in battles, legal judgments, and imperial favors. These capabilities could determine life and death, as is shown in the above cases. Such stories underscore why ancient Chinese officials placed great emphasis on their advisors’ literary abilities.
Translated by Audrey Wang
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