Ji Chang, the Western Earl later honored as King Wen, is the political founder of the Zhou cause in Investiture of the Gods. He governs Xiqi through restraint and is famed for interpreting the Earlier-Heaven trigrams. Summoned to the Shang capital after criticizing King Zhou’s conduct, he knows a seven-year disaster awaits but goes rather than abandon his duties as a vassal.
Ji Chang is confined at Youli. His eldest son Boyi Kao brings ancestral treasures to ransom him, only to be killed through Daji’s accusations and made into meat cakes. The king forces Ji Chang to eat them as a test of his divination. Ji Chang conceals what he knows until the moment of release; outside the passes he vomits three white rabbits, the transformed remains of his son. Lei Zhenzi, the hundredth son he found during a thunderstorm, then uses wind-and-thunder wings to help him escape pursuit.
Back in Xiqi, Ji Chang seeks the recluse Jiang Ziya at the Wei River and treats him as the long-awaited strategist of the Zhou house. The ruler personally draws Jiang’s carriage until he can go no farther, a journey later read as measuring the years of Zhou rule. With Jiang directing government and war, Xiqi grows strong, but Ji Chang dies before the final conquest. His son Ji Fa inherits both the throne and the campaign. Plain lordly robes, divination tokens, and the journey to invite Jiang express a founder whose decisive acts are endurance and recognition.
