Bi Gan

Bigan was a high-ranking minister during the late Shang dynasty, and a member of the Shang ruling family. His ancestral name was "Zi" (子). He was the son of King Wen Ding and served his nephew, King Zhou. Zhou, the last king of the Shang dynasty, has been traditionally regarded as notoriously cruel, immoral, and wasteful. According to the account recorded by Sima Qian in his Records of the Grand Historian, King Zhou's minister Weizi admonished him to reform his ways several times, but his admonitions fell on deaf ears. Weizi then decided to withdraw from the court, but Bigan argued that to serve as minister meant doing what was right even if it meant death. Bigan continued to strongly criticise his ruler's conduct, and an enraged King Zhou ordered his execution, proclaiming that he wanted to see if it was true that a sage's heart had seven apertures.[1]

David Schaberg has argued that the tendency for later politicians to adopt an indirect style of critique when disagreeing with their rulers was influenced by the gruesome fate of figures like Bigan.[2]

In the Analects, Bigan was honored by Confucius as one of "the three Good men" of the Shang, together with Weizi and Jizi.[3] Bigan later became an exemplar of the loyal advisor willing to lose his life for giving truthful advice. When the Spring and Autumn-era general and politician of Wu, Wu Zixu, was ordered to commit suicide, his last words were, "After my death, later generations will definitely think that I was loyal. They will indeed match me up to the Xia and Yin [i.e., Shang] eras, making me a companion of Longfeng and Bigan”.[4][note 1] When Hu Yuan, who served King Min of Qi, was about to be executed, he referenced both Bi Gan and Wu Zixu: "Yin had its Bigan, Wu had its Zixu, and Qi [now] has its Hu Yuan. [This state] not only didnt make use of apt words, it also executed their speaker at its eastern gate. By being executed, I will form a triad with those two masters."[4] The historian Fan Wenlan ranked Bigan alongside Guan Longfeng, Qu Yuan, Zhuge Liang, and Wei Zheng as one of the great frank and courageous patriots of Chinese history.

Later accounts of the life of Bigan added details, including that his execution came at request of King Zhou's notorious concubine Daji, because she objected that Bigan had remonstrated with Zhou for wasting money meant for the common good. These depictions were an influence on Bigan's later deification as a Caishen, or god of wealth.[5] A notable example of this version of Bigan's story can be seen in the famous Ming dynasty novel The Investiture of the Gods.