Orphan Zhào
(Zhào Shì Gū’ér 赵氏孤儿)

The Sorry State of Jìn

In the state of Jìn 晋 in the Chūnqiū 春秋 period (period 04d), the monarch was foolish and corrupt and expected his underlings to do all the work of governing. The great general WÈI Jiàng 魏绛, loyal but disgusted and eager to avoid the royal court, went off to war and remained away for fifteen years.

Also in the state of Jìn there lived two officials with a rank just below the monarch himself. The civil official, named ZHÀO Dùn 赵盾, was virtuous, but the military official, named TÚ’ÀN Gǔ 屠岸贾, was evil. The virtuous Zhào and the evil Tú’àn were enemies.

A neighboring king gave the monarch of Jìn a miraculous but vicious dog (shén’áo 神獒), which was passed on to the evil Tú’àn, who trained it to attack a dummy dressed as Zhào. When the dog was fully trained, Tú’àn started a rumor that there was a traitor in their midst, and that the dog was capable of detecting the traitor.

All the top officials were brought before the monarch, and the dog was released and immediately attacked Zhào. Zhào (or more exactly what the dog left of him) was therefore executed, together with all his family and servants with the exception of his pregnant wife, ZHUĀNG Jī 庄姬, who was only placed under house arrest, since she happened to be a royal princess, not to say quite beautiful.

A Child is Born

Zhào’s pretty widow, the royal princess, soon gave birth to Orphan Zhào (ZHÀO Shì Gū’ér 赵氏孤儿), whom Tú’àn Gǔ determined to kill to avoid its growing up to seek revenge or to have a claim on the throne.

Tú’àn’s hostility was very obvious to everyone. In the end, the baby was smuggled out of the palace in the doctor’s bag of CHÉNG Yīng 程婴, a doctor called to tend to the baby’s mother, Lady Zhào, who feigned illness after the child was born. Once the baby had been carried away, she and her maids pretended that he had been severely malformed and stillborn and that the hideous little body had immediately been thrown away. This would explain why it was not around to be killed.

Dr. Chéng Yīng was briefly detained at the door by the righteous general HÁN Jué 韩厥, under orders to be sure that no baby left the compound. But general Hán Jué, being sympathetic to Chéng Yīng’s mission to save the child, let him pass. Chéng Yīng secretly took the baby home for a time, treating him as a tiny brother to his own baby son.

Meanwhile, overcome with shame at having failed in his official duty to prevent the baby from being slipped out the door right under his nose, but revealing the child’s whereabouts to no one, Hán Jué committed suicide.

Tú’àn Gǔ was evil, but he was not stupid. Once he realized that the baby had somehow been successfully stolen, Tú’àn announced that if it was not returned to him in three days, all small children in the state of Jìn would be massacred.

As we said, Chéng Yīng, the physician, himself had a baby of about the same age as Orphan Zhào, and both children were at risk if there was to be a general massacre of children.

A Painful Plan Is Executed

He conferred with his friend GŌNGSŪN Chǔjiù 公孙杵臼, a virtuous senior courtier who had withdrawn from service to avoid Tú’ān. Gōngsūn Chǔjiù agreed to sacrifice his life to save the children of Jìn. So Chéng dressed his own son as the “lost” orphan and passed him on to Gōngsūn. He then reported to the evil Lord Tú’àn that the orphan had been found in the custody of Gōngsūn. Gōngsūn and the child, Chéng Yīng’s son, were immediately executed, but the other children of Jìn were spared.

Tú’àn Gǔ himself did not have a son, and demanded to adopt the boy he thought was Chéng Yīng’s son (the actual Orphan Zhào) as a mutually convenient “reward” for Chéng Yīng having fingered Gōngsūn Chǔjiù as the criminal who had abducted the Orphan of Zhào. The adoption would give Tú’àn Gǔ a son, and would reward the physician with the honor of having provided one.

Revolted, Chéng Yīng nevertheless could not refuse without arousing suspicion.

A Baby Grows Up

Tú’àn Gǔ, like a good father, ordered that his new adoptive son be taught military arts, even while simultaneously allowing him to learn medical arts from Chéng Yīng, his putative natural father. Tú’àn Gǔ never imagined that the youth he was thus preparing for war was in fact the baby Zhào, whom he thought he had destroyed.

Chéng was widely criticized for acting as the boy’s tutor, in apparent collaboration with the tyrant Tú’àn.

Fifteen years later —longer in some versions— the monarch of Jìn was on his deathbed, and General Wèi Jiàng returned from the frontier. As a patriotic warrior, he was particularly offended by Chéng Yīng’s collaboration in the execution of the lad everyone thought was Orphan Zhào, and he had Chéng beaten and denounced him vigorously for his treachery.

When Chéng Yīng finally had opportunity to speak, weak from his terrible beating, he told General Wèi of sacrificing his own son, and of the sacrifices made by Gōngsūn Chǔjiù, who was executed, and Hán Jué, who committed suicide.

When General Wèi learned of this great treachery, he was sorry that he had had Chéng beaten without hearing his story. And he agreed to contribute his talents to try to depose the tyrant Tú’àn.

A Lad Comes of Age

Chéng Yīng then told Orphan Zhào about his origins and his obligation to avenge his family’s slaughter. Orphan Zhào had grown to be very strong and had learned all the arts of war. Tú’àn Gǔ had raised him to be unquestioningly obedient to his adoptive “father.”

But when the boy learned that Tú’àn was not his real father, his sense of duty shifted to his real father Zhào Dùn, who had been killed after the dog had falsely identified him as a traitor. In fact, on learning the truth, Orphan Zhào was happy to conspire against his false father, the evil Tú’àn.

And so, after conferring together, the conspirators invited Tú’àn Gǔ to dinner, and Orphan Zhào killed him, a fate he richly deserved.

[This story has a long history as part of the repertoire of Chinese opera companies. A critically acclaimed Anglophone version of this play was presented at UCSD in Summer of 2014 under the title “The Orphan of Zhao.” In that adaptation, the central figure of the drama was Chéng Yīng (played by B. D. Wong), who, in order to avoid suspicion about the real fate of Orphan Zhào, reluctantly remained at the court of Tú’ān Gǔ as his personal physician and co-parent and had a pivotal role in his “son’s” education. A coda was added in which Chéng was confronted by the ghost of his own child, the one he had allowed to be executed in order to save the Orphan Zhào. When the ghost was persuaded that his father had in fact loved him, he helped the doctor to commit suicide on the son’s violated grave.]