Wen Hui style name

Chinese style name

A Chinese style name, sometimes also known as a courtesy name , is a given name to be used later in life. After 20 years of age, the zì is assigned in place of one's given name as a symbol of adulthood and respect...

 Manji (曼基), was a minister of Cao Wei

Cao Wei

Cao Wei was one of the states that competed for control of China during the Three Kingdoms period. With the capital at Luoyang, the state was established by Cao Pi in 220, based upon the foundations that his father Cao Cao laid...

 during the Three Kingdoms

Three Kingdoms

The Three Kingdoms period was a period in Chinese history, part of an era of disunity called the "Six Dynasties" following immediately the loss of de facto power of the Han Dynasty rulers. In a strict academic sense it refers to the period between the foundation of the state of Wei in 220 and the...

 period of Chinese history

History of China

Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...

. Wen Hui was a reputed administrator of Cao Wei. After many successful performances as a local official in the late Han Dynasty

Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...

, Wen Hui returned to the capital and ended up becoming a chancellor of records. Cao Cao

Cao Cao

Cao Cao was a warlord and the penultimate chancellor of the Eastern Han Dynasty who rose to great power during the dynasty's final years. As one of the central figures of the Three Kingdoms period, he laid the foundations for what was to become the state of Cao Wei and was posthumously titled...

 quickly took notice of Wen Hui's skill and promoted him to many other important positions in the future. One of such as protector of Yang Province.

Mentions in other works

Wen appears in the Essentials of Nourishing Life chapter of the Zhuangzi

Zhuangzi

Zhuangzi was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BCE during the Warring States Period, a period corresponding to the philosophical summit of Chinese thought — the Hundred Schools of Thought, and is credited with writing—in part or in whole—a work known by his name,...

 (circa 300 CE), a manual on Taoist philosophy. The chapter mentions how he was amazed at his kitchen attendant, Cook Ding’s, masterful ability to carve up a beef cow. As he carved, the cleaving of the knife and the tapping of the cook's feet created a rhythm similar to "Sanglin" dancing. Wen exlaimed, "It's so wonderful! How can one's skill reach this condition?" Cook Ding stopped and replied

"What I'm keen on is Dao, which exceeds the pursuit of skill. When I had just started to cut beef, what I saw was a whole ox, but three years later, I never saw an integral ox. Now I don't need to watch with my eyes any more, but merely feel and understand with my mind. At this moment my organs stop functioning, and only my mind is working. When I cut in the direction of the veins of the ox, I find no obstacles. That is why the knife edge still remains sharp although I've used this knife for nineteen years and cut thousands of oxen."

This story spawned a saying called "Cook Ding Cuts the Beef," which is a Taoist anecdote for cultivating the Tao

Tao

Dao or Tao is a Chinese word meaning 'way', 'path', 'route', or sometimes more loosely, 'doctrine' or 'principle'...

by following the natural flow of things.