Credit: Dangerous Minds / Public Domain

Most of the time, art is the best weapon you’ve got in the fight against tyrants. However, Gao Jianli took this sentiment a little more literally than most.

When you say that, you’re normally talking about a great piece of satire that shows the truth of what a wannabe dictator is doing. Something that isn’t yet another propaganda piece blowing smoke up the dear arsehole of the “dear leader” and keeping their populace good and tamed. Or perhaps you want to puncture the aura of dominance and control that said tyrant is trying to perpetrate by ripping the ever-loving piss out of them.

One way or another, the target of this art isn’t actually the tyrants themselves, but the people who live in fear under them… Gao Jianli, a musician who lived in the Chinese state of Yan during the Warring States period of 475 to 221 BC, had a slightly different idea, his idea of using art as a weapon against tyrants was one a little more direct than that – one that had nothing to do with changing the tide of public opinion against a tyrant (you can’t do that, that’s the point), and everything to do with separating their brain from their skull (something one person can do, fun fact!).

Gao Jianli was a musician by trade, but he was also a close friend of a man called Jing Ke, a warrior so fearsome that he was scouted by Yan Dan, the crown prince of Yan, to assassinate King Zheng of Qin, who was conquering the surrounding lands of Qin with the intent of uniting all of China under his rule, and the Crown Prince wanted Jing Ke to cut the head off the snake and end his reign of terror once and for all, but Jing Ke was unsuccessful and died in the process.

While he may have been a mere musician, Gao Jianli began to plot his revenge.

What happened to Gao Jianli next?

After the Crown Prince’s attempt on King Zheng’s life failed and Jing Ke was killed, Gao Jianli went into hiding – he changed his name, put his zhu, a stringed instrument that’s an ancestor to the zither, into storage and took a job at a wine merchant’s shop until the heat died down, stayed under cover for many years until, after a while, he finally felt comfortable playing his zhu again, and the whole of his local community was taken aback at this wine merchant’s apprentice with a God-given musical talent.

Over that time, King Zheng’s attempt to unite China had worked, and he was no longer King Zheng, but Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. Qin Shi Huang loved music. He, too, heard about this Zhu player and summoned him to his court. While he was there, the jig was up, and Gao Jianli’s identity was revealed. However, the first emperor fancied himself a forgiving man and kept him as a palace musician on one condition. Gao Jianli was to be blinded to prevent any assassination attempts.

He went through with this and waited a few years for any suspicion of him to die down. Despite his blindness, Gao Jianli began to fill his zhu with pieces of lead, making it heavier and heavier day by day. The emperor had thought he had broken him entirely, so when Jianli finally lifted his zhu to get his revenge and strike the emperor dead, it took him completely by surprise. Jianli was still, unfortunately, blind. His attempt missed, he was seized and executed.

Good thing we don’t have tyrants anymore, eh? Or people would start getting ideas.