Jiexiu, China

History

Mianshang was supposedly set apart by Duke Chong'er to endow sacrifices for his retainer Jie Zhitui c. 636 BC. The early histories state that Jie had loyally followed Chong'er in exile around China for 19 years but, when Chong'er was installed as duke of Jin by a Qin army, Jie had chosen to retire as a hermit rather than debase himself by asking for favors. In time, this caused him to be seen as a Taoist immortal. Later legend embellished the tale, having Jie save Chong'er from starvation by cooking a soup made from meat from his own thigh only to be killed when Chong'er listened to advice from Jin courtiers that the way to drive him out of the mountains was to light a forest fire. The idea was that Jie's duty to his mother would overcome his pride and they would flee together; instead, their corpses were found days later beneath a willow. Temples were erected in Jie's honor and, by the Han, the people of Shanxi tried to curry favor with his spirit by observing a Cold Food Festival in the dead of winter. They ignored repeated attempts to ban it although, as it moved to spring and spread throughout China, it eventually developed into the present-day Tomb-Sweeping Festival.

From the History section of Jiexiu on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.