Jiang Ziya

Jiang Ziya, whose given name was Shang and courtesy name Ziya, lived at the turn of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. In his early years he worked as a butcher and vendor of cooked food, remaining obscure and unfulfilled until well past seventy, when he famously fished with a straight hook at Panxi Stream on the Wei River—where he was discovered by King Wen of Zhou, who declared him 'Taigong Wang' ('the Duke of Zhou’s Long-Awaited Mentor') and appointed him Grand Tutor. He thereafter advised Kings Wen and Wu in their successful campaign to overthrow the Shang and establish the Zhou dynasty, and was enfeoffed as ruler of Qi, becoming its founding sovereign. Military strategists revere him as the progenitor of Chinese military science; in 760 CE, during the Tang dynasty’s Shangyuan era, he was posthumously honoured as Wucheng Wang (King of Martial Accomplishment) and enshrined alongside Confucius (Wenshuang Wang, King of Civil Cultivation) in the Imperial Martial Temple. Through the Ming-dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods, his legend expanded: wielding the Spirit-Subduing Whip and the apricot-yellow banner, he acted as Heaven’s emissary to invest the 365 orthodox deities—yet remained himself without divine rank. Hence arose the popular saying, 'Where Jiang Taigong stands, all other gods must yield', and his name is inscribed during roof-beam ceremonies and for exorcism and household protection to ensure 'no prohibition may stand in the way'.