And that’s not clickbait!

Actually it’s probably a bit clickbaity, because once we get into it, well, about twenty million people out there claim a relation to King Wen. Anyway, I very recently learned that the Wen 溫 Hakka clan descends from King Wen 周文王 (who we attribute the I Ching oracle to) and his son King Wu of Zhou 周武王, according to Chinese genealogical records.

Which is to say 100+ generations later, I’m writing the English translation and annotations of (maybe, possibly) my ancestor’s Great Work. I mean. Shrug. Smirk. How’s that for authority. 😉

No but seriously. For years as an author when anyone asked “Are you related to King Wen?” due to my work with the I Ching, I would immediately “correct” them with, no, not at all. It’s not even the same “wen” character, I’d say. King Wen = 文. My surname Wen = 溫. See? Except oops. Joke’s on me.

Let’s start with who claims ancestral lineage to King Wen of Zhou, whose clan or family name was Ji 姬. There are two cohorts:

Cohort (1): Those whose surname is “文” same as King Wen, whereby sometime in the 3rd century we get a document noting a guy who claimed he descends from King Wen and thus assigns himself the surname “Wen 文.”

Cohort (2): Those who descend directly from the King Wen or Ji 姬 royal line. Other surnames identified in Zuo Zhuan, a Zhou dynasty text on Chinese history, identifies twelve surnames, such as Guan 管, Tsai 蔡, Cheng 郕, Wei 衛, and Teng 滕, as the direct descendants of King Wen.

With respect to cohort (1), the royal family’s surname was Ji, so King Wen himself wasn’t a “Wen 文.” He was Ji Chang 姬昌, his son King Wu of Zhou was Ji Fa 姬發, and Tang Shuyu was Ji Yu 姬虞. “Wen 文” is a posthumous title. Not to mention the Zuo Zhuan doesn’t identify the Wen 文 surname as a descendant; this was a claim made by the cohort later on in time.

I’m from cohort (2). In the case of the Wen 溫 family name, they claim direct descent from Ji Yu 姬虞, more commonly referred to as Tang Shuyu 唐叔虞, the grandson of King Wen. Tang Shuyu was given his own fiefdom to rule, Tang 唐, which under his son the Marquis of Jin, became a state called Jin 晉 (which is also Hexagram 35, Advancement) in the region that is now Shanxi.

And then, with respect to cohort (2), what’s cited from the Zuo Zhuan explains the historical origins of those surnames, and doesn’t necessarily mean all twenty whatever million people today bearing those names are actual direct descendants of King Wen 文王.

The Wen 溫 clan, however, appears to claim direct descendancy, beyond just the surname association. This is corroborated in a 11th century Book of Tang, expressly identifying Wen 溫 as a direct familial descendant of Ji 姬 via “We’re the great, great, great… great, great… great grandchildren of Tang Shuyu, the second son of King Wu of Zhou, who was the second son but became heir apparent of King Wen, who was given a region of the Zhou dynasty called Wen 溫 to rule, and once there, took up the name Wen 溫 as their ruling family name.”

The part that historical records can confirm is that up until about 650 BC, during the Spring and Autumn period, Tang Shuyu’s descendants are ruling this region called Wen 溫, about 30 miles from Luoyang (of Luo Shu magic square fame) in a territory called Henan 河南. Henan is considered a cradle of ancient Chinese culture, and also, one of the origin points of the Hakka people.

But then we get to a missing link in the chain. (Though the Hakka Wen 溫 clan hagiography seems to be confident there’s no missing link at all, asserting in records that we definitely descend from King Wen through his grandson Tang Shuyu.)

We end on the Wen 溫, an aristocratic family, ruling a region called Wen 溫, and then the Qin dynasty took over and that’s where the publicly available trail goes a bit cold, and we’re relying on privately-held family and clan records.

History tells us that around 300 AD, after the fall of Luoyang, the capital city, a wave of the then aristocracy left the Central Plains, including the ruling elite from Henan 河南, and headed south. Thus begins the forming of the Hakka people, a sub-group of the Han Chinese whose northern plains ancestors migrated and settled in the south to escape persecution.

Our own Wen family records begin with a Wen Jiulang 溫九郎 from the Song dynasty (960 – 1279 AD), and specifically, “during the reign of Song Gaozong,” which we know was between 1127 and 1162 AD. And so to me, that’s the missing link: can we connect Wen Jiulang 溫九郎 to the Wens descending from Tang Shuyu enfeoffed at Wen. Purportedly, Wen Jiulang 溫九郎 records outside my family records, say yes. So if they’re right, then cool, no missing link.

Wen Jiulang 溫九郎 is the first name that begins my Wen lineage records that the family has had for generations, first copied down by hand, then some time during my father’s generation, typed up and printed into a book. So yeah, we’ve got family records traced back to the 12th century. It’s pretty cool.

During the Song, Wen Jiulang 溫九郎 led his northern aristocratic clan (claiming descendancy from the Wen 溫 who descend from the King Wen royal line) south to Fujian. That guy’s official records make that claim of King Wen royal descendancy. Our own private family’s records begin with Wen Jiulang 溫九郎 as our patriarch and no mention of anything before him.

Which is just to say I know for sure I descend from Wen Jiulang 溫九郎, but do we know whether Wen Jiulang 溫九郎 for sure is a descendant of King Wen through his grandson Tang Shuyu? If yes, the claims are true, then yes! I’m a descendant of King Wen! If no, then well, I still had a fabulous time researching my paternal family history.

Wen Jiulang 溫九郎, our patriarch, relocates his family to the south, but in the south, his clan becomes a “guest people” and therefore were referred to as the Hakka, “客家” kejia, which literally translates to “guest people.”

Wen Zhaowang 溫兆旺 is the 15th generation descending from Wen Jiulang 溫九郎, and this Zhaowang guy and his elder brother decide to cross the Taiwan strait and settle in the Toufen Tianliao 頭份田寮 region, what is now Miaoli.

In 1826, some of my ancestors get caught up in the Huang Dou Nai Incident 黃斗乃事件, when the Hakka and the indigenous Saisiyat people formed an alliance against the local Hokkien people, resulting in a massacre of the local Hokkien. Qing dynasty reinforcements from the mainland were sent in, and to save their clans and tribesmen from obliteration by the Qing, a few martyrs stepped forward to take the fall. A Hakka tradesman who married the daughter of a Saisiyat chieftain, Huang Dou Nai 黃斗乃, who the Incident was named after, was executed along with his Saisiyat wife. Wen Fuming 溫復明, one of my ancestors, was exiled.

My grandfather is listed as the 22nd generation descending from Wen Jiulang 溫九郎, and then it’s my Dad, and then it’s me, but I’m not in the Wen 溫 family records because I’m a girl. Hey. It is what it is. No worries, I’m finding my own way to make it into the records as a Wen. 😉

Anyway, as you can probably see, I fell down a rabbit hole, several rabbit holes really, deep-diving into my Wen family history. It turns out the Wen 溫 family is quasi-famous, and throughout most of the late 1800s, were a bit of an institution in northern Taiwan. We were government officials, ran and operated a famous and historic coal mine, produced sugar and also managed the trade routes across Asia to sell it, cultivated tea, camphor incense, and managed irrigated agricultural land. The Wen family created a private welfare program for their community, whereby tenants on their land and workers at their companies earned vouchers in addition to their salary, which they could exchange for goods at a commissary. And apparently there’s a lot of stuff in Taiwan museums, government records, and even a few scholarly folk have written books and articles about us.

Oh! Another super interesting coincidence… My mother’s surname is Chen 陳. Per the Book of Han, King Wu of Zhou (that’s King Wen’s son who defeated the Shang and became the founding ruler of the Zhou dynasty) had this daughter that “had no sons” or couldn’t bear sons. It described her as being devoted to “working with gods, spirits, and ghosts” and “performing sacrificial rites accompanied by drumming and dancing.” This daughter of King Wu’s married into the Chen family, and therefore was known as Lady Chen 陳夫人, described in history books as a “巫” or shaman/witch. So my Mom, a Chen, who is unequivocally witchy, married into the Wen clan, whereas per genealogical surname history, Lady Chen was a Wen daughter who married into the Chen clan. Anyway, I don’t know if that’s a stretch. In any regard I found it interesting.

Reflecting on all this, I guess I have not done a “return to motherland” trip yet. I’m thinking at some point, I’ll need to start at Shanxi and Henan in northern China, then trace the southbound route of the Hakka Wen clan as best as I can, visit Fujian and Meizhou in the south, and then finally cross the Taiwan Strait to the mountains of Sanwan in Miaoli.

This past weekend Hubby and I were chatting about family history and the importance of our generation doing all we can to get our family records in order, especially for these Westernized generations coming up after us, many who don’t even read or write Chinese anymore. That the Wen family tracked 25 generations of Wens from our Song dynasty patriarch Wen Jiulang to our Taiwan patriarch Wen Zhaowang, who was the 15th generation from Wen Jiulang, with the biographical narrative of each generation to my grandpa and my dad’s line, is beyond priceless. And we have a duty to do the same for our family (in this case meaning our nieces and nephews).

A conversation on family history turned into a conversation on the history of modern China – or more accurately, its erasure. During the Cultural Revolution, everyone on the mainland had to destroy their family records. One, if you had a written family record, that meant you were from an elite class, which was exactly the class of people being persecuted during the Revolution. Two, who the heck wanted to keep around proof that you were a feudal lord. So if for sure you knew there was something in your family records that tied you to aristocracy, then the last thing you’d want is documentation of it.

Hubby’s maternal line were urban industrial capitalists and intellectuals, so they most certainly did not keep around any family records (and got persecuted by the Red Guards anyway). His grandmother got shackled with a neck yoke and marched down the public square for abuse and ridicule, “all of his grandfather’s gold” was taken by the Communists, and his mother was sent to a reeducation camp in the countryside for a decade of her life.

As for his paternal line, they were the ideal celebrated class of folk to be during the Cultural Revolution, the kind that wouldn’t have had a family book at all, because even if they were literate and could write, what the heck would they write down? Peasant Zhang gave birth to Peasant Zhang, who then gave birth to Peasant Zhang. Brothers 2, 3, 8, 9, and 12 died of starvation during the famine…

Spiritually I wonder how deep the impact goes for an entire nation of people who have had to all but wipe their memories of their family legacies.

Though it wasn’t just the mainland. Even in Taiwan, the poor working class wouldn’t have had family records either. Mom was the first in her family line to go to college, breaker of cycles, breaker of chains, yada yada. And so for her side of the family, we just have oral history, passed down by way of he-said she-said.

On Dad’s side, it’s like, here’s everyone in your family line going back to the 1100s and here’s a poem your great, great, great, great grandfather wrote and here are museum archived records of their contributions.

On Mom’s side, it’s just Mom telling me, “Your grandpa sold home-made tofu, magical healing potions, and talismans from a makeshift wagon he hooked to his bicycle. And then he died young due to lack of proper healthcare.”

It’s funny, though, how my paternal line has copious records but I grew up knowing fairly little about them, whereas my maternal line has zero written records but I feel like I know so much more. Growing up my father didn’t really talk about his side of the family. In fact, most of what I learned about my paternal line came from Mom or my maternal relatives.

In an effort to keep this essay focused, I didn’t detail all the twists and turns from my findings, but suffice it to say, the Wen family history is wild. Not only that, but an incidental benefit has been learning so much more about the Hakka culture and our traditions. I say “our” like I know anything about the Hakka. =D But I’m actively learning!

How about you? Have you ever dug deep in to your family history? Find anything interesting?

UPDATE:

Someone commented with a great suggestion of doing an I Ching divination on my ancestry and what the Oracle has to say about whether I am a direct lineaged descendant of King Wen! So I did. And underwent all the meticulous ceremonial bells and whistles, performing the divination ritual during an astrologically compatible ascendant hour on the autumnal equinox.

I got Hexagram 54, Marrying Maiden, with changing lines 2 and 5 (the ruling line! also auspicious!), into Hexagram 17, Inspiring Followers, which is, funny enough, one of those hexagrams I seem to get frequently.

Won’t get involved and wordy writing out my personal interpretation as I feel like this is one of those “no one cares” situations? It’s just for me?

But in short, the line statements in this reading just so happen to reference King Wen, albeit indirectly through his wife. Hexagram 54 is about the King Wen’s wife TaiSi, through reference to his father-in-law, the wife’s father. And then Hexagram 17 has the reference to the ancestral mountains where Wen family line go to speak to their kin in spirit.

Which is all to say, I certainly felt a sense of peace and contentment from this reading!