Biography
Her hometown was in Longxi County, Gansu. Her father was a high-ranking official as an imperial adviser. As a young girl she became known for her studying. When she was sixteen, she married the aristocratic Yang Dan. During the uncertain times of the three kingdoms, her brother often asked her for advice.
In 234, when Zhuge Liang gave Sima Yi the lady's dress attempting to stir up Sima's anger. Sima wrote to Cao Rui and asked for the authority to fight Shu's forces (it was not known in history whether Sima Yi did this because he was angry himself, or just doing it to calm down his generals). Xin Pi thought it was amusing and told it to his daughter at the dinner-table, Xin Xianying replied with a serious tone, "The army determines the fate of a nation, nobody can afford to joke over that. Fighting the enemy because of anger often leads to unexpected losses, it is something we should avoid." Xin Pi thanked his daughter, and replied Cao Rui next day, advising him to enforce Sima Yi to defend his camp and wait for opportunities. Zhuge Liang died of illness the following month.
Xin Xianying often talked to her nephew Yang Hu about Zhong Hui's ambitions to rule, and said that one should avoid having too close personal contacts with Zhong Hui.
Read more about this topic: Xin Xianying
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
—Richard Holmes (b. 1945)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)