The Ren-Shen Tai Sui: General Liu Wang

The ocean and the monkey

Ren is yang water, the wide ocean that can be calm as a deep pool or rise into a huge wave. Shen is the monkey in early autumn, quick, clever and able to grab a chance in a split second.

General Liu Wang guards this year. People born in Ren-Shen years are often quick thinkers who find surprising ways out of tricky situations, with real depth under the cleverness.

Steady and a little playful

He wears a dark green square hat, a reddish brown robe and a deep blue sash. His round face is calm, with a hint of mischief, like someone who has seen big storms and still keeps a light heart.

He holds a scroll in his right hand and looks completely sure that, however tangled the problem, he already has it worked out.

The stone under the old tree

According to legend, he was Liu Wang, a Tang dynasty magistrate known for getting things done without losing his principles.

A rich merchant and a farmer were fighting over a piece of land, and both of their papers had holes in them. The staff had argued for seven days. Liu Wang went to the field himself and talked to more than thirty old villagers. At the roots of a hundred-year-old tree, he found a half-buried stone marker from fifty years earlier, showing the official boundary.

The case was settled, and both sides accepted it. People started calling him "Clever Liu."

Clean as water

When he left his post, people lined the road with homemade wine and grain. He turned it all down except a little wooden seal an old farmer had carved for him. It read "Clean as water." He kept it on his desk for the rest of his life.

Heaven named him the Tai Sui of the Ren-Shen year. A scroll in his hand and quick wits that help everyone: that is his gift to everyone born in the Year of the Monkey.