Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/596

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A Chinese Biographical Dictionary
577


old mother, and invited his gnest to share a dish of boiled herbs. Mao Sheng % ^ (T. %!7 B^ ). Same as Mao Ch'i-ling. 1603

Mao Sui % ^ . 3rd cent. B.C. A retainer in the establishment 1604 of 1^ Shfing, Prince of P'ing-yOan. When the armies of Ch'in were besieging the capital of the Chao State, the mler of the latter sent Sh6ng to secure the alliance of the Ch'a State. Sh6ng called for twenty of the bravest and shrewdest of his swashbucklers^ but only nineteen were forthcoming. Mao Sui offered himself as the twentieth, dwelling much upon his own qualifications. But Sh6ng said to him, **A man who is worth anything is like an awl in a bag: you soon see its point. Now you have been with me three years, yet we have never seen your point." To this Mao Sui replied 4 **Give me this chance of being the awl in the bag, and before long you shall see not the point only but the whole awl.'* Thereupon the nineteen swashbucklers jeered; however at the conference with the Prince of Ch^u, when the deliberations had already dragged on from dawn to noon, Mao Sui mounted the dais sword in hand, and with a few well-timed threats forced the vacillating prince to yield his consent to the alliance. From that date Mao Sui became chief of the retainers in Shrug's employ, and his name is now a synonym for "self-recommendation.** Mao-tun ^ ^ . 2nd cent. B.C. A Hun chieftain who succeeded 1606 in shutting up the Emperor Eao Tsu of the Han dynasty in ^ ^ P4ng-ch^6ng, Shansi. Capitulation must have followed had not Ch*6n P'ing {q.v. for an inferior version) discovered that Mao-tun's wife, who was in command on one side of the city, was a slave to jealousy. He forthwith caused a number of wooden puppets representing beautiful girls to be exhibited on the city walls, at which sight the lady's fears for her husband's fidelity were aroused, and she drew off her forces. Mao Yen-Shou ^ ^ ^- Ist cent. B.C. A native of Tu-ling 1606

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