The fate of Xi Shi is not clearly recorded in serious history books, so we will never know for sure what the real history is.
But clues can be found in other ancient books and documents.
First, after breaking through the Wu Kingdom, he was sunk into the river and drowned alive. The evidence comes from the famous "Mozi Juan 1 Relatives Chapter": "Therefore, Bi Qian's death was due to his resistance; Meng Ben's killing was due to his bravery; Xi Shi's sinking was due to his beauty; Wu Qi's split was due to his deeds."
Yao Kuan of the Song Dynasty mentioned in his "Xixi Congyu" that he saw in "Wu Yue Chun Qiu" (a book written in the Eastern Han Dynasty): "Wu died and Xizi was killed." Yang of the Ming Dynasty Shen and others have also seen this record in the book.
The second is that after breaking through the Wu Kingdom, he followed Fan Li and retreated to Taihu Lake. Lu Guangwei of the Tang Dynasty once quoted "Yue Jueshu" in his "Wu Di Ji": "Xi Shi returned to Fan Li after the fall of Wu, and went with him across the five lakes."
Below, we have a look at the credibility of the above documents. Let’s do an analysis:
Wu Po was born in 473 BC, and Mozi was born around that time. And Yue's extermination of Wu was something that shocked the world at that time. The specific situation at that time should be that "everyone on the earth was purple." Especially people like Mozi, who had disciples all over the country, were "well-informed people." Therefore, Mozi should be very aware of the major events that happened just a few decades ago, and as a great scholar, it is completely impossible for him to just talk nonsense in the first article of his painstaking work.
The article by Mozi I quoted is a classic that has been passed down through the ages, and there is no possibility of it being tampered with or misrepresented. Even if Mozi was wrong, his book was widely circulated at that time. If he made a mistake at the beginning, many people who knew the truth decades ago would surely write articles and point it out. Since no one refuted it, it shows that this statement was widely accepted by the world in the decades after Xi Shi's death.
However, the idea that Xi Shi followed Fan Li to live in Taihu Lake did not appear until the Eastern Han Dynasty. The "Wuyue Chunqiu" and "Yue Jueshu" at that time were about the same time, but the versions were completely different. Therefore, we can only conclude that by the Eastern Han Dynasty, differences had emerged.
However, both the authors of "Wu Yue Chun Qiu" and "Yue Jue Shu" are more than five hundred years apart from Xi Shi. It is impossible to find witnesses. They can only quote from some ancient books, but they did not When it comes to where the information about Xi Shi's whereabouts came from, the credibility is greatly reduced.
Maybe Xi Shi really retired happily in history, and we also hope that China’s history will not be so cruel. But from the perspective of textual research, I can only say with great regret that the theory of being drowned by Jiang is probably more reliable.
As for who is so cruel and lacks aesthetic taste. He should not be from Wu, but also an ordinary soldier from the Buyue Kingdom. Because the Jin Dynasty's "Supplementary Notes" mentioned that when the Vietnamese soldiers rushed into Wu Palace, they saw Xi Shi and Zheng Dan standing under the tree. They were so shocking that they did not dare to offend them. If this theory is true, it means that Xi Shi was still alive when the Wu Kingdom was destroyed and was captured together with Zheng Dan. Fan Li could not openly snatch such a famous person from the soldiers, so he had no chance to secretly take her away. The Yue soldiers did not dare to offend her. Those who could kill her were not ordinary people, but only the highest level of the Yue Kingdom. Gou Jian is unlikely unless he is good enough. Therefore, it could only be that the queen of Yue put Xishi in a sack and sank it into the river to prevent her from straying into the country. In fact, it was to prevent her from seizing favor. But whether it harms the country or seizes favor, it all confirms what Mozi said: Xi Shi was drowned because she was too beautiful.
Xi Shi’s historical role is determined. It is difficult for her to be happy: to the King of Yue and Fan Li, she is a tool; to the King of Wu, she is a toy; to herself, she can only be a cup!
Hope to adopt