Yi Yin was born in 1649 BC, and his name was Zhi. "Yin" is the official name, equivalent to the prime minister, that is, the post he later held. Yi Yin was born in the late Xia Dynasty, and later helped Shang Tang to crusade against the Xia Dynasty and establish the Shang Dynasty. He was a famous politician and thinker at that time. According to records, Yi Yin lived in Shang Dynasty for more than 50 years and died at the age of 100.

Yi Yin was born in the kingdom of Shen Yu and was a slave. Smart and eager to learn from childhood, while working in the fields, while learning Yao and Shun's way of governing the country. He is the teacher of noble children. After hearing about Yi Yin, Shang Tang hired him with generous gifts many times when he was thirsty for talent. Unfortunately, Wang Xin refused. It was not until Shang Tang married the daughter of King Shen You that Yi Yin became a vassal of Shang Tang.

After coming to Shang Tang, Yi Yin became his teacher and continued his education. Yi Yin taught Shang Tang the way of Yao and Shun, that is, the ruling idea of benevolent government. In addition, he also planned a strategy for him to crusade against the Xia Dynasty and save the Li nationality. When Xia Jie's tyranny made him an independent husband, Yi Yin helped Shang Tang establish the Xia Dynasty and eventually the Shang Dynasty. Yi Yin made great contributions and was named the right prime minister Yin. Since then, Yi Yin has been in the Shang Dynasty for more than 50 years, and has experienced five kings: Shang Tang, Waii, Renzhong, Taijia and Woding. He not only helps them, but also is their teacher.

During his tenure as Yin in Shang Dynasty, Yi Yin advocated "reconciling five flavors" and other cooking methods to govern the country, which made the Shang Dynasty well governed, economically prosperous, politically clear and the country strong. So Yi Yin was later evaluated by Lao Tzu as a saint who ruled a big country by cooking fresh things. Yi Yin died at the age of 100, and was buried next to Shang Tang mausoleum with a gift from the emperor.

Yi Yin Fuding

"Yi Yin's Dingding" is the allusion of Sima Qian's Historical Records Yin Benji. This article mainly tells the story that Yi Yin told Shang Tang about the opportunity to cook and how to govern the country. Some scholars also use these four words as idioms to describe opportunities to seek self-worth.

In Sima Qian's description, there are two versions of the story of Yi Yin meeting Shang Tang. In the first edition, Yi Yin's name is Aheng. He wants to see Shang Tang, but he can't, so he cooks for Wang Shen's daughter so that he can see Shang Tang. After that, Yi Yin came to see Shang Tang with his pot and chopping board on his back. I first talked with him about his cooking and taste, and then took the opportunity to persuade him to practice kingcraft. So the story of Yi Yin's negative tripod comes from this version.

Another version of the story says that Yi Yin was a talented and moral hermit. He refused to be an official, so he refused to be employed in Shang Tang. He agreed five times before and after. Telling Yi Yin about the ancient emperors' way of governing the country was highly valued by him. Yi Yin once left Shang Tang for Xia Jie, but later he hated Xia Jie and returned to Shangdu. When he entered the city, Yi Yin met two other female pigeons and houses in Shang Tang. After he came back, he wrote two articles, namely "Female Pigeon" and "Female House".

Yi Yin's negative tripod comes from this allusion, which is often used to refer to assisting the emperor in later poetry articles. The words "negative tripod", "ambition of one yin" and "cooking with one yin" are similar in etymology and meaning.

As for using Yi Yin's negative tripod as an idiom, although there are no relevant examples and evidence, this metaphor is also very appropriate, because it is an opportunity for Yi Yin to know Shang Tang, so it is reused, and it can be said that it has realized its self-worth.

On Yi Yin

It's Su Shi's argumentative essay. Su Shi, a writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, is a representative figure with the highest literary achievements in the Song Dynasty, and one of the "eight masters in Tang and Song Dynasties". Besides the most famous poems, argumentative essays are also one of Su Shi's representative works. Compared with Yi Yin theory, his Yi Yin theory and Jia Yi theory are more famous.

Su Shi's Fan Ceng theory does not take Yi Yin as the evaluation object of the full text, but takes him as a positive model of success, and the words involved in Yi Yin in the text are only two or four or five sentences.

The full text comes up as a person who can do everything in the world, and must be a noble person who is unmoved by foreign things. The second paragraph starts with ordinary men and women, a clear grain soup and a village, and is deduced to princes, the richest man and the world, which shows that the more people who can't be moved by foreign objects, the more they can achieve greater things.

The third paragraph begins with Mencius' comments on the Book of Changes. Mencius believed that although Yi Yin tilled the fields, he would not accept it even if the whole world gave it to him without morality. Su Shi commented that Yi Yin was a man with perfect morality, so he could govern the world. Then he lamented that in ancient times, a gentleman could broaden his mind by giving generous rewards to senior officials, but now people have lost all their faces.

The fourth paragraph begins with the story of Confucius lamenting the mutual surrender of Yu Shun, Yu Xia and Hao Tao, arguing that the world is not enough to impress their hearts, which is why they can gain the trust of the world. Later, Su Shi took the story of Yi Yin's exile in Taijia as an example to show that no one thought that Yi Yin's behavior was wrong, because he did it for Taijia and the world, not for his own gain or loss.

Finally, Su Shi thinks that moral people now only know how to follow the rules and dare not stand out for the world, which is a big mistake.

I'm Tang Yin Ye Jing.

Yi Yin is not only a wise prime minister, but also accomplished in politics, military and medicine. It is said that he invented soup, that is, soup medicine, and wrote a book. The Han Dynasty is called Yi Yin Lun, with 32 volumes. Because it was written by Yi Yin, it is also called Tang Yejing method.

As can be seen from the history books, Yi Yin is an excellent cook and a wizard with superb medical skills. It is said that his invention of decoctions has much to do with his cooking. It is said that in the process of making soup, he had a whim and boiled Chinese herbal medicine into food, thus giving birth to the first Chinese herbal medicine soup in China history. This story was widely circulated in the later medical field, and his decoction for benefiting yin was attributed to the Classic Prescription School. Later, Zhang Zhongjing's Yi Yin Tang and other medical books quoted many prescriptions in the Book of Changes and gave many examples. Unfortunately, it is said that this book was lost after the Tang Dynasty, so it is impossible to know the original text of this book.

Although some people think that Yi Yin began to be popular when he was alive, and he didn't invent it himself, most people firmly believe that Yi Yin invented it. Therefore, it is considered that Yi Yin's Treatise on Febrile Diseases is the basis of TCM prescription science, and the source of classic prescriptions still used by TCM today lies in this book. Yi Yin is also called "the sage of Asia" by TCM. There are often statues of Yi Yin in temples and ancestral halls visited by doctors, and some people even call him "three sages" with Huangdi and Shennong.

During the Republic of China, there was a teacher, Yang, who wanted to restore the true colors of soup through classics. He sorted out the contents of the Book of Changes and rewrote it into a book called Yi Yin Tang according to some Chinese medical classics that quoted it.