Transmitted by Xu Tonghua. Based on the Jiao'an Qin Pu. Two sections.
The Piece
The title draws on two ancient stories. Yi Yin — the great minister who helped found the Shang dynasty — spent his early years plowing the fields of Shen, content in obscurity, waiting for the right moment to serve. Jiang Ziya — the strategist who helped establish the Zhou — fished for decades on the banks of the Wei River, his hook famously straight, catching nothing and everything at once. Both men lived in retirement not as defeat, but as preparation. Both were called, in time, to change the course of history.
Geng Shen Diao Wei takes these two figures as its subject — not their moments of triumph, but their years of quiet waiting. The melody is unhurried, serene, at ease with itself. It expresses what the score describes as the attitude of the ancient sage-recluse: ān yú tiānmìng, yōurán tián dàn — at peace with heaven's timing, tranquil and untroubled.
The Image
To plow is to work the earth in faith — you prepare the ground without knowing when the rain will come. To fish is to wait with full attention — the line is cast, the surface is still, and you are entirely present to the possibility of the moment.
These are not passive acts. They require a particular quality of inner life: the ability to remain unhurried in a world that rewards urgency, to trust that depth of preparation matters more than speed of action.
The Confucian tradition called this zhī mìng — knowing one's mandate, accepting one's timing. It is not resignation. It is the confidence of a person who understands that the right moment cannot be forced, only recognized.
Mei Yueqiang's Technique
Mei Yueqiang employed a distinctive technique in this piece. At a key moment, the left thumb presses the sixth and seventh strings simultaneously at the 6th hui, 2nd fen, while the right hand executes a rapid lì — a quick pluck across both strings in succession. The moment the notes sound, the left hand slides swiftly down to the 7th hui. The effect is immediate and physical: the sudden release of tension, the arc of a line cast out across the water.
In the West, lure fishing — casting and retrieving, the rod flexing, the line unspooling through the air — has its own devoted following. The guqin, an instrument of scholars and sages, turns out to be capable of mimicking that exact motion and sound. There is something quietly delightful about this: two thousand years of classical music, and somewhere inside it, the flick of a fishing rod. Western listeners: seek out the passage between 1:10 and 1:20 in the recording above — that is the moment. Listen for it.
Yi Yin plowed. Jiang Ziya fished. Mei Yueqiang found, in the strings of a seven-string instrument, a way to make you feel the line leave the hand.
Read more about this piece: Tasting Mei · XVI : Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbar →
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