Bao Si's Smile

🌸 Comedy version of 'Bao Si's Smile, the Kingdom Tilts'
--- One day at the royal palace. King You of Zhou, sighing...

King You: "Ah~, Bao Si won't smile for me again today... What am I doing wrong...?"

Retainer A: "Your Majesty, you danced in a peacock costume yesterday, didn't you?"

King You: "Indeed. The peacock dance didn't work. The frog impression didn't work. She ignored it all!"

Retainer B: "(Whispering) ...King, isn't this getting a bit serious?"

King You: "If it comes to this, I'll use my trump card! What would happen if I lit those emergency 'signal fires'? Seeing the lords running around in a panic, that's kind of funny, right?"

Retainer A: "Wait, you don't mean... seriously?"

King You: "Alright, light the signal fires!!"

--- Signal fires, poof~~~.

The Lords: "It's a disaster! Enemy attack! Let's goooo!"
(A large army gathers with a thundering sound)

King You: "...How's that?"

Bao Si: "Pfft... hehe...! Hahahaha!"

King You: "It happened! Bao Si laughed!!!"

Retainer B: "Eh...? You used the emergency alert system just for that?"

King You: "Since she laughed, it's fine! This smile was worth paying a thousand pieces of gold to see...!"

Retainer A (muttering): "The signal fires are a state secret, you know..."

--- Ever since then, King You would frequently light 'fake signal fires' for Bao Si's sake.

The Lords: "Again?! Is it a lie again?!"
The Lords ②: "We're coming here risking our lives, you know!? This isn't child's play!"

Bao Si: "Hehehe, everyone is so angry. How cute~♡"

Retainer B: "Lady Baosi... you're really enjoying this, aren't you..."

--Then one day, the real enemy, the Quanrong army, attacks!

King You: "Come on! Light the signal fires!! It's the real enemy, lords, come here!"

...Whoosh...

.........

............

..............

King You: "...Huh? Why isn't anyone coming...?"

Retainer A: "Your Majesty, that's because you've lost everyone's trust..."

King You: "Whaaaat!? I just wanted to make her laugh...!"

Retainer B: "Destroying a country just to make someone laugh is unprecedented!"

--And so, King You was defeated in battle and lost his life at the foot of the mountain--

--But, after that--

King Ping (formerly the Crown Prince): "I will succeed the throne! From now on, fake signal fires are forbidden!"

The Lords: "Exactly! We won't trust you anymore!"

Narrator: "Thus, the legend of the 'man who destroyed his country by seeking a beautiful woman's smile' was passed down to future generations--"

🐉 Summary of Points (Bonus)
King You was historically the last king of the Western Zhou dynasty.

Baosi was a beautiful woman who is said to have actually existed, and in history, she was called a 'peerless beauty who could destroy a country.'

The idiom 'Feng Huo Xi Zhu Hou' (deceiving the lords with signal fires) was born from this story.

(Supplementary Material)

<Classical Chinese Text>
He then lit the signal fires for no reason.
The feudal lords all arrived.
But there were no invaders.
Baosi laughed heartily.

<Literal Translation>
Then, without cause, he lit the fires.
The feudal lords all arrived.
However, there were no invaders.
Baosi laughed heartily.

<Interpretation>
So, (King You, as a test,) lit the signal fires for no reason.
The feudal lords all came without exception.
However, there were no invaders.
(Seeing this,) Baosi laughed heartily.

<Reference Material>

【The Smile of Baosi, the Fall of a Nation】
--A symbolic tale of the collapse of an ancient Chinese dynasty concerning King You of Zhou and Baosi--

The story 'The Smile of Baosi, the Fall of a Nation' is an allegorical episode recounting the political upheaval and collapse of the dynasty that occurred during the reign of King You in the late Western Zhou period, and it has long been passed down as an ancient Chinese political warning.

■ Sources and Historical Positioning
This story is primarily found in the 'Records of the Grand Historian' (Zhou Benji), 'Zizhi Tongjian', and 'Eighteen Histories', and is also told with rich embellishments in unofficial histories and collections of tales. In particular, works such as the 'Yi Zhou Shu', 'Guoyu', and 'Dong Zhou Lieguo Zhi' contain unique descriptions of Baosi's birth and her relationship with King You, and in later generations, she was considered the archetype of a 'femme fatale' (red-faced disaster).

■ Baosi's Origin and Legendary Background
Baosi is said to have the surname 'Si' and is reported to be a woman originating from the ancient state of Bao (near present-day Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province). The surname 'Si' belongs to a clan linked to the lineage of Yu the Great of the Xia dynasty, and from the perspective of the surname system, she held a connection to the dynastic bloodline.

There are multiple legends regarding her origin. Among them, the most famous is told with the following structure:

During the Xia era, two divine dragons appeared in the royal palace, identified themselves as the rulers of Bao, and the saliva they spat was placed in a gold basin and sealed.

In the reign of King Li of Zhou, the box was opened, and the saliva transformed into a glowing insect, which possessed a young girl in the inner palace, causing her to become pregnant.

After the girl was born, she was considered an omen of misfortune and set adrift on a river, but she was protected by birds, picked up by an old man from the state of Bao, and raised.

That child later became Baosi.

These descriptions are also found in similar examples in the 'Da Dai Liji' and the Later Han miscellaneous book 'Taiping Guangji', but they clearly contain mythological embellishments. On the other hand, the 'Records of the Grand Historian' and 'Yi Zhou Shu' state that she was an abandoned child picked up in the state of Bao and later presented to King You as a peerless beauty.

■ The Relationship Between King You and Baosi
King You of Zhou (reigned 781 BC–771 BC) was the son of King Xuan of Zhou and the last king of the Western Zhou. He was devoted to Baosi, deposed his legitimate queen, Queen Shen, and her son, Yijiu (later King Ping), made Baosi his queen, and installed her son, Bofu, as the crown prince.

According to legend, Baosi was a woman who would not smile, and King You employed various schemes to try to win her smile. The most famous of these is the 'Lighting of the Signal Fires to Tease the Feudal Lords'.

At the time, to prepare for invasions by frontier ethnic groups (such as the Quanrong), the Zhou dynasty had established an emergency mobilization system using signal fires (beacon fires). King You lit these emergency fires as a false alarm just to make Baosi laugh, summoning the feudal lords for no reason.

Baosi laughed at this, and King You was delighted, but the King's credibility was ruined.

■ Political Collapse and the Eastern Migration of the Zhou
In 771 BC, the Marquis of Shen (the father of King You's former queen, Queen Shen), enraged by the deposition of his daughter and grandson, brought in the Quanrong, an ethnic group, to launch a rebellion. King You lit the beacon fires again to request aid, but because of the previous incident, the feudal lords did not move. King You was killed at the foot of Mount Li, and Baosi was captured.

With this, the Western Zhou fell, and the Zhou moved their capital to the eastern capital of Luoyi (Luoyang). The subsequent Zhou dynasty is called the "Eastern Zhou," which lost its effective centralized power and entered the era of the various states (Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods).

This series of events is strongly criticized in Confucian ethics as an incident symbolizing the loss of royal authority. The symbolic expression that "the country was tilted because of the smile of one concubine" became established as a cautionary tale against "a beautiful face being a source of disaster" and "disturbing the government with beauty."

■ Evaluation and Symbolism
This story is not merely a tale of a beautiful woman, but a symbolic representation of the collapse of an ancient dynasty. The disintegration of the Zhou feudal system, the feudal lords' defiance of royal orders, the invasion of ethnic groups, and the private use of royal power—all are condensed into this incident.

Also, the way Baosi is depicted is noteworthy. In historical records, she is consistently portrayed as a "woman who does not smile" or a "bewitching being," which can be read as the anxiety of the male ruling class toward women's emotional expression or as a warning against a political system shaken by a woman.

In that sense, Baosi can be called a "cultural device" that symbolizes the chaos of the late Zhou dynasty.

■ Related Stories and Phrases
Feng Huo Xi Zhu Hou (Playing with beacon fires to amuse the feudal lords): A story about causing political chaos by privately using emergency military signals.

Hong Yan Huo Shui (A beautiful face is a source of disaster): A political warning from ancient China that a country will be thrown into chaos by a beautiful woman.

Yi Xiao Qing Cheng, Yi Gu Qing Guo (One smile tilts a city, one glance tilts a country): Established as a proverb since the Eastern Han dynasty meaning "a beautiful smile can cause a country to fall."

This story is a microcosm of ancient Chinese history where politics and personal feelings, beauty and power, and morality and desire intersect, and it continues to have a profound influence on later literature, art, and thought. As a tragic story symbolizing the collapse of the Confucian order, it remains in people's memories to this day.