East Zhou 5 Stories of Warring States 2 东周 5 战国故事 2

The Dependants of Mengchangjun (孟尝君) Mengchangjun provided food and housing to a lot of people at his house, which was a popular thing at that time. His dependants were very different people, e.g. one was good at stealing things, one could imitate different sounds. Mengchangjun once visits the king of Qin Country and gives him a clothes made from a white fox, which is very precious. But the king thinks he know too much and wouldn’t let him go out. He wants the king’s wife to persuade the king to let him go, who claims she would only do so if she also get a white fox clothes, which Mengchangjun doesn’t have any. One of his dependents then steals the clothes from the king and the wife helps them to escape. When they arrive at the gate which has been closed at night, another dependent imitates roosters singing so the guard thinks it’s already dawn and opens the gate. Mengchangjun finally escaped. “Rooster sings Dog steals” became an idiom which means non-mainstream skills that may be looked down on. http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/BUNvC2FNPWs/

The Dependants of Mengchangjun (孟尝君) Mengchangjun had so many dependents so he taxed his people heavily and lent money to them and charge very high interest to make money. Among more than 3000 dependants, there’s a man whose name was Fenhuan (冯驩). Once he travels to a place, and Mengchangjun said: “Bring back some if you see something good.” When Fenhuan arrives there, he finds people live a miserable life and hate Mengchangjun. He burned all the documents of people’s debt, and when Mengchangjun learns what he did and gets angry, he replied: “You told me to bring you something good. This is the best thing you could ever get: people’s hearts”.