Agreements Archives - Page 5 of 6

The Washerwoman’s Meal

As a poor young man, Han Xin fished below the city wall of Huaiyin. A washerwoman saw that he was hungry and fed him for the several dozen days of her washing. He told her that he would repay her richly. She was angry. “A grown man who cannot feed himself! I fed you out of pity. Do you think I expected a reward?”

Years later, Han Xin became King of Chu. He summoned the washerwoman and gave her a thousand gold. Han Xin had once eaten for months at the house of a local official, until the official’s wife stopped serving him. To this man he gave a hundred coins. “You are a small man. Your kindness did not last to the end.” (Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian)

Buying Righteousness

Lord Mengchang of Qi sent his retainer Feng Xuan to collect debts in his fief of Xue, and told him to buy whatever the household lacked. In Xue, Feng Xuan claimed his lord’s authority, forgave the debts and burned the debt tallies. The people cheered. Back home, he explained: “What your house lacks is righteousness. I bought righteousness for you.” The lord was not pleased.

A year later, the king dismissed Lord Mengchang, and he had to go back to Xue. While he was still a hundred li away, the people came out, old and young, to welcome him on the road. He turned to Feng Xuan: “Today I see the righteousness that you bought for me.” (Strategies of the Warring States)

Guan Yu Lets Cao Cao Go

In chapter 50 of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the defeated Cao Cao flees by the Huarong road and finds Guan Yu waiting for him. Guan Yu has signed a military pledge to stop him. Cao Cao asks him to “give weight to the feelings of former days.”

Guan Yu answers that he once received Cao Cao’s great kindness, “but I have already repaid it” by killing two enemy generals and lifting a siege. Cao Cao asks whether he still remembers the five passes, where Guan Yu killed Cao Cao’s generals as he left him years before. Guan Yu turns his horse and orders his men to spread out, which plainly means letting Cao Cao go.

Back at camp, Zhuge Liang says: “Guan Yu thought of Cao Cao’s old kindness and let him go on purpose. But there is a military pledge.”

Withdrawing Three Marches

In exile, the Jin prince Chong’er came to Chu, and the King of Chu gave a feast for him. The king asked how he would repay him. Chong’er answered that if he ever returned to rule Jin and their armies met on the central plain, “I will withdraw three marches before you.” (Zuo Zhuan)

In 632 BCE, now Duke Wen of Jin, he faced the Chu army and withdrew three marches, about ninety li. His adviser Zi Fan explained: “Without Chu’s kindness we would not be here. We withdraw three marches to avoid them, and that is our repayment.” Then the armies met at Chengpu. The story gave Chinese the idiom 退避三舍, to withdraw three marches.

Sayings on Repaying Kindness

投我以桃，报之以李 He gave me a peach, I repaid him with a plum. (Book of Songs) Today shortened to 投桃报李, the friendly exchange of gifts and favors.

无德不报 No kindness goes unrepaid. (Book of Songs, the same poem)

结草衔环 To tie grass and carry rings in the beak. To repay kindness even after death. In the Zuo Zhuan, Wei Ke married off his late father’s concubine instead of burying her with him. In battle, her dead father tied the grass so that Wei Ke’s enemy tripped and was captured.

Selling a Favor

人情 Human feeling. Also a favor, or a gift. 做个人情, to do someone a favor.

卖人情 To sell a favor. To do someone a good turn on purpose, so that they feel grateful. A dictionary gives the example: “If you sell him a favor today, he will surely repay you in the future.”

人情世故 Human feeling and the ways of the world. The knowledge of how to deal with people.

Gift Money

At a Chinese wedding, guests give gift money, a custom called 随份子. A commentary published in Chinese media in September 2026 described its logic. Gift money “has taken on a kind of contractual character.” A guest gives now so as to receive “an equal return gift from the other side” at their own wedding in the future. “From this angle, it is even like an interest-free loan.”

The same piece reported that the city of Shangluo in Shaanxi had issued reference limits on gift money: no more than 100 yuan in the countryside and 200 yuan in the city.

Competing in Favors

The 2021 “No. 1 Document” of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, which sets rural policy for the year, called for stronger action against high bride prices, 人情攀比, competition in gift-giving, lavish funerals and waste. The 2026 No. 1 Document again called for “continued action against competition in gift-giving and lavish events.”

A news report on the 2026 document described rural banquets held for no occasion at all. “The exchange of favors,” it said, “has become a heavy economic burden.”

Sayings on Keeping One’s Word

一诺千金 One promise, a thousand gold. A promise of the highest worth. It goes back to a saying of Chu recorded by Sima Qian: “Better to get a hundred gold than one promise from Ji Bu.”

一言既出，驷马难追 Once a word is out, a team of four horses cannot catch it.

一言为定 One word settles it. A word once given is not changed or taken back.

Moving the Pole

Before he announced his new laws, the Qin reformer Shang Yang feared that the people would not believe him. He set up a pole three zhang tall at the south gate of the capital’s market and offered ten gold to anyone who moved it to the north gate.

People found this strange, and nobody moved it. He raised the reward to fifty. One man moved it and was paid fifty at once, “to show that there was no deceit.” Then the laws were issued. The story is in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, and it is known as 徙木立信, moving a pole to establish trust.