The Battle of An () was fought during the
Spring and Autumn period in 589 BCE at
Hua Hill in the area of the present-day city of
Jinan,
Shandong between the states of
Qi and
Jin. It ended in a victory for the state of Jin and eventually resulted in an alliance between the two states.
Two of the three surviving commentaries on the
Spring and Autumn Annals
The ''Spring and Autumn Annals'' () is an ancient Chinese chronicle that has been one of the core Chinese classics since ancient times. The ''Annals'' is the official chronicle of the State of Lu, and covers a 241-year period from 722 to 48 ...
, the
Zuo Zhuan and the
Guliang Zhuan
The () is considered one of the classic books of ancient Chinese history. It is traditionally attributed to a writer with the surname of Guliang in the disciple tradition of Zixia, but versions of his name vary and there is no definitive way t ...
describe the event that led to
the battle as an insult that an emissary of Jin suffered at the court of Qi,
[Jiang Yike, The Battle of An, Between Jin and Qi, For Hegemony]
but the two accounts differ on the nature of the insult. According to the
Zuo Zhuan, the duke of Qi allowed women to watch the emissary's visit from behind a screen, women who then insulted the emissary with their
laughter.
[ Burton Watson: The Tso chuan: selections from China's oldest narrative history, Columbia University Press, 1992]
/ref> The Guliang Zhuan
The () is considered one of the classic books of ancient Chinese history. It is traditionally attributed to a writer with the surname of Guliang in the disciple tradition of Zixia, but versions of his name vary and there is no definitive way t ...
claims that the duke of Qi insulted the emissaries of four visiting states by assigning each of them a server who shared their respective physical defects.[
]
References
589 BC
An
6th century BC in China
An
Jin (Chinese state)
Qi (state)
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