Gongzi Yong公子雍

History vs. fiction

Was 'Prince Yong' mistakenly conflated with princes from both Qi and Jin?

• novel inventionIs the historical figure named 'Prince Yong' both the son of Duke Huan of Qi who fled to Qin and was employed, and the prince of Jin who was escorted back by Duke Mu of Qin and died in the chaos of war?

  The description of '公子雍' in the candidate file suffers from serious misattribution and conceptual confusion. In actual history, during the Spring and Autumn period, there were two '公子雍' with the same name but from different states: one was a concubine-born son of Duke Huan of Qi (公子雍), who participated in the succession struggle among his sons after Duke Huan's death; the other was a son of Duke Xian of Jin and younger brother of Duke Xiang of Jin (晋公子雍), whose story is detailed in 《史记·晋世家》—he was advocated by Zhao Dun to be installed, escorted back to Jin by troops sent by Duke Mu of Qin, but was defeated and perished in the Battle of Linghu. The candidate file conflates these two same-named figures from Qi and Jin with vastly different life trajectories, forcibly stitching them together—a typical case of misattribution. The original text: “葛嬴，生昭公潘；密姬，生懿公商人；宋华子，生公子雍。”（《史记·齐太公世家》，data/raw/shiji/齐太公世家.txt）It also records: “襄公之弟名雍，秦出也，在秦。晋赵盾欲立之，使随会来迎雍，秦以兵送至令狐。”（《史记·秦本纪》，data/raw/shiji/秦本纪.txt）