Bi Gan was a prince of the Shang house. Wikidata names him Bi Gan. The record also has the later form Lord Lin the Grand Preceptor, which does not replace the title. The article says he was of the Zi clan, from Mei in Yin-Shang, which it identifies with present-day Weihui in Henan. He was a son of King Wen Ding, a younger brother of Di Yi, and an uncle of King Zhou. He was clever and hardworking as a child and rose to junior preceptor. Confucius names Weizi, Jizi, and Bi Gan the three benevolent men of Yin, and says Bi Gan died because he remonstrated. He is also treated as the ancestor of the Lin surname and as a god of wealth. This entry records no birth or death year and lists him as a political figure. The article likewise gives only question marks for the years.[1][2]
Accounts of his death
Death for remonstrance is the early account. The article says the story that his heart was cut out is first recorded in the Spring and Autumn period, long after the event, and that the texts make King Zhou more cruel as time goes on, so later embroidery cannot be ruled out. A Hunan Television summary of the Xia-Shang-Zhou chronology project says some steles in Bi Gan temples put his death more than ten years after King Zhou, which would mean King Zhou did not kill him. The article calls this short of proof and still a doubt. In the Warring States period another account, close to the story of Qu Yuan, says Bi Gan drowned. The modern scholar Gu Jiegang also argued that Bi Gan was both King Zhou's uncle and King Wu of Zhou's maternal uncle, that he tried to mediate, and that he died in the confusion of the battle when mediation failed. King Wu buried him hastily on the field and built a great tomb only after Shang had fallen. That would explain the record of the tomb. These accounts do not agree, and this entry does not choose one death.[2]
Honors, cult, and the novel
Emperor Taizong of Tang gave him the posthumous office of grand preceptor and the title Duke of Loyal Ardor. Emperor Shun of Yuan added Renxian, making him the Duke of Manifest Benevolence and Loyal Ardor. A Daoist collection of audiences of the god of wealth calls him the Perfected Bi who Guards Wealth and Stores the True. In Investiture of the Gods, Jiang Ziya enfeoffs him as the star lord of Wenqu. Weihui in Henan has a Bi Gan temple, with the stele Confucius is said to have cut with a sword, Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei's lament for Bi Gan, and more than a hundred other steles. The temple was founded in 494. Qi county in Henan, according to the Qi county gazetteer, has a temple of the three benevolent men, for Bi Gan, Jizi, and Weizi. In the novel he has a heart with seven openings. For three days and nights at the Star-Plucking Terrace he blames Daji for throwing the realm into disorder and tells King Zhou that disaster is near if he abandons the former kings' rules and listens only to a woman. Daji, the nine-tailed fox, already hates him for the burning of the fox den. King Zhou has his heart cut out. The terrace at Qi county was later renamed the Heart-Plucking Terrace. The novel says Jiang Ziya's charm lets him live after the heart is gone, until he meets a woman selling hollow-heart vegetables. She says a person without a heart dies, and he dies at once. He is then called the first loyal minister of all time. The portrayal is Bi Gan. The article also lists screen performers. Those names are not copied out here.[2]