Yanshi County took its name in the early Western Zhou. When King Wu marched against King Zhou, he encountered two reclusive Shang nobles, Bo Yi and Shu Qi, at the foot of Shouyang Mountain. King Wu ordered his eastbound army to rest its arms awhile and hear what these two sons of the Lord of Guzhu, who had each yielded the throne to the other, had to say. Thus the place was named Yanshi, "resting the army." At this time, five thousand infantry and cavalry under Murong Chui, the Yan Kingdom's General of the Southern Expedition, Grand Commander of Henan, and King of Wu, and Yue Xi, Sima to the Grand Preceptor, were encamped north of Yanshi, at the southern foot of Shouyang Mountain.
At the Hour of the Rabbit that day, the five thousand Yan soldiers had cooked and eaten their fill and were about to break camp and advance on Luoyang, fifty li away, when Murong Chui suddenly received an urgent report from Sun Gai, a deputy general in the vanguard. He had captured the Jin envoy Chen Caozhi, the Qin envoy Xi Bao, and more than three hundred others. Yet Chen Caozhi claimed to carry a gift from an old friend of the King of Wu's from thirty years ago and wished to present it to him in person-
To capture the envoys of both Qin and Jin unexpectedly on the eve of attacking Luoyang was a matter of great consequence, and utterly out of the ordinary!
Murong Chui ordered the army to postpone its westward advance and await orders at Yanshi. He summoned the messenger into his tent for questioning, first asking who this old friend from thirty years ago was. The soldier could not answer, saying only that the Jin envoy Chen Caozhi wished to