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Retired professor Zhang Huicheng (张惠诚) recently published a book named “History of Chinese Court Coups” (中国历代宫廷政变), which recorded many mishaps and conspiracies that accidentally led to the demise of a certain kingdom or dynasty. One story goes like this:

In the year 605 BC of the Spring and Autumn Period (54 years before birth of Confucius), the newly enthroned king Zheng Linggong (郑灵公) ruled the Kingdom of Zheng (small part of today’s Henan province) . He had two ministers respectively named Zigong (子公) and Zijia （子家）, both blessed with royal bonds and prominent positions in the court.

One day on their way to the court, Zigong’s finger suddenly started moving by itself. ”This is a sign that I’m going to eat something really delicious today! It never fails! ” explained Zigong to the surprised Zijia. Right enough, news soon came that Zheng Linggong was hosting a banquet to treat all his ministers a good soup of giant tortoise from the Kingdom of Chu. Zigong was extremly proud of his prophet finger, and exchanged loud giggles with Zijia in the court.

“What? You think your finger is always true?” after learning why Zijia and Zigong giggled, Zheng Linggong jested, he then made up his mind to show this boastful minister some lessons. So when the soup was served, he ordered it to be distributed to every official from high to low, only deliberately omitting Zigong. “See?” he laughed merrily, “in the final analysis it is your king who decides your chance of a good feast, not your finger!”

Feeling humiliated by the king’s untimely joke and losing face in front of all his peers, Zigong turned red, and then suddenly jumped up towards the soup pot (a huge one, of course, those that we see in museums as giant bronzeware of holy and mysterious patterns). Overseeing all the obligations of ceremonies and regulations, Zigong dipped his finger in the soup, licked at it (some say he even got a piece of meat to chew in his mouth). He then turned to the audience and declared, “well, I think my finger still rules here!” Then without even looking at the king, he flew out of the court.

Now it was the king’s turn to handle the embarrassing situation, and he handled it with no less dignity and royal outrage. “How dare he act like this in front of all the officials of my kingdom? Is this kingdom so small that we couldn’t even afford a knife to behead such an impudent bastard?”

All the officials knelt down to beg for the king’s leniency, with no vail. Zijia also tried to appease the king by bringing Zigong to apologize, only ended up in greater tense. In the meantime, Zigong, who understood himself as a threatened exile, briskly moved on to form a small team of assassins, persuaded Zijia not to take side with the “rotten” king, bribed the servants of Zheng Linggong and then killed him on a good night when the king was staying in a fasting palace during a royal ceremony.  The king was then reported to have died from disease, and the throne was immediately passed down to Zheng Xianggong (郑襄公)  after another legitimate heir Prince Quji (公子去疾) refused to take it for fear of public scold. A very quick coup indeed.   

This story was recorded by Zuo Qiuming in  Tso Chuan （左传·宣公四年）, and by Sima Qian in Historical Records （史记·郑世家）. It gives rise to the Chinese term 染指，or  ”dipping one’s fingers in”, meaning interfering with other’s affairs for the purpose of getting a lion’s share.

The model Chinese philosopher Confucius, however, blamed this assassination on Zijia who failed to protect his master even when he knew his peer was conspiring against him, thus he even changed the text of his compiled history Annals of the Spring and Autumn Period to tell this same story. It was Zijia who killed the king, wrote he.