Is “Fishing by the Wei River and emerging at seventy” true?
based on fact
The Records of the Grand Historian, Hereditary House of Qi Taigong, records that he was poor and old, and sought an audience with the Earl of the West by fishing; but in the novel, Taigong meets King Wen at eighty and possesses magical powers, which is a later legendary embellishment.
Jiang Ziya
In official history, he is the founding minister of Qi and the ancestor of military strategists; in novels, he is portrayed as a Taoist master who descends the mountain to oversee the canonization of gods.