Zhang Jie

Beaten to death in this chapter for saying what nobody else will. Alone in the hall he answers Sima Yan: 'You are wrong to speak thus, O Prince. His Majesty's ancestor conquered east and west, north and south, and won the empire by strenuous effort. The present Emperor is virtuous and without fault. Why should he yield place to another?' — and, told that three generations of Simas had upheld Wei, does not back down: 'If you do this thing, you will be a rebel and an usurper.' 'He bade the lictors take Zhang Jie outside and beat him to death, while the Ruler of Wei wept and besought pardon for his faithful minister.' The chapter's verse on the abdication stops to name him: 'Zhang Jie the true / Stood in the way and died. We pity him.'