翟公 / Zhai Gong (Western Han)

Overview

翟公 / Zhai Gong is the Western Han official whose crowded residence in office, empty gate after dismissal, and returning visitors after reinstatement form the current source’s story behind “门可罗雀.”

Current Profile

Hanji 333-1 says Zhai Gong serves as 廷尉 in the fifth year of Yuanguang. Visitors crowd his gate while he holds office, but after dismissal the entrance becomes quiet enough to set a net for sparrows. When he returns to office, the visitors return too.

The episode says Zhai responds by writing at his gate that life and death reveal friendship, poverty and wealth reveal social conduct, and high and low rank reveal the relationship. This turns his residence into a test of 权势依附型交往 rather than merely a scene of personal disappointment.

Key Characteristics

• Western Han official identified by the episode as 廷尉 in Yuanguang 5.
• Receives crowds of visitors while in office.
• Experiences an almost empty gate after dismissal.
• Sees former visitors return after restoration to office.
• Answers the reversal with an inscription about friendship under death, poverty, wealth, rank, and disgrace.

Evidence

Office and guest traffic:

• Hanji 333-1 gives the crowded, deserted, and crowded-again sequence across office, dismissal, and restoration.

Idiom image:

• Hanji 333-1 connects “门外可设雀罗” with the later expression “门可罗雀.”

Relationship test:

• Hanji 333-1 attributes the three-part inscription to Zhai after visitors return.

Qualifications

The source note is a short podcast summary and explicitly lacks rigorous textual collation. It does not reconstruct Zhai Gong’s full biography, the exact dates of dismissal and restoration, the physical state of his gate, or the wording and earliest manuscript form of the inscription. The page treats “门可罗雀” as the episode’s later idiom connection, not as the verified exact phrase of the underlying Han account.

What Changed

• Created the page from Hanji 333-1’s office-reversal story and idiom explanation.

Relationships

• 汲黯 / Ji An (Western Han) - worthy official whose loss of visitors is compared with Zhai Gong’s experience.
• 郑当时 / Zheng Dangshi (Western Han) - hospitality-centered parallel case of abandonment after dismissal.
• 司马迁 / Sima Qian - historian whose recorded comparison the episode invokes.
• 权势依附型交往 / Power-Contingent Social Ties - relationship pattern made visible by the three changes in Zhai Gong’s gate traffic.
• Emperor Wu of Han / 汉武帝 - reign context for Zhai Gong’s service in the episode’s account.