A certain Li of Caozhou, a licentiate of the district, was rich in lands, but his house was not large; behind it was a garden of several acres, left to lie waste. One day an old man came to rent the house, offering a hundred ounces of gold, which Li refused on the ground that he had no room. "Pray take the money," said the old man, "and do not worry." Li, not understanding his meaning, took it to see what would come of it. The next day the villagers saw a great train of carriages and horses, with the old man's family, enter the Li house, thronging and jostling, and wondered how it could be lodged there. They asked Li, who knew nothing of it; and when he went back to look, he found no trace of anything. Some days later the old man came to call. "I have been under your roof some days now," he said, "and everything is still rough; I have been setting up stoves and ovens and have not yet paid you the respects of a guest. Today I have made my children prepare a meal, and I hope you will honor me with a visit." Li went, and, entering the garden, suddenly found the house new and splendid; within, the rooms were furnished with taste and fragrance, wine bubbled in the corridor and the smoke of tea curled in the kitchen. Presently wine and dainties were served, of the most delicious kind; young men were seen coming and going in the courtyard, and the murmur of sons and daughters, with laughter, came from behind the curtains; the servants and maids seemed to number many score. Li knew in his heart they were foxes.
When the feast was over he went home, secretly meditating murder. Every market-day he bought saltpetre and sulphur, till he had accumulated several hundred catties, and secretly strewed them all over the garden. Then he set fire to them suddenly. The flames shot up to the sky like a black fungus, filling the air with stench and smoke and blinding ashes, through which could be heard a confusion of cries and howls. When the fire died down he went in to look and found the ground covered with dead foxes, countless with scorched heads and singed brows. As he surveyed the scene, the old man came in from outside, his face white with grief. "We had never a quarrel," he said, "and I have paid you a hundred ounces a year for the waste garden—was that not enough? How could you be so cruel as to exterminate my whole family? Such a monstrous wrong cannot go unavenged!" He went away in a fury. Li expected he would throw stones and work mischief, but a year passed with nothing strange. Now in the early years of Shunzhi, bandits had broken out in the hills, gathering ten thousand and more, whom the officials could not suppress. Li, having a large family, was daily anxious about the disorders. Presently a fortune-teller came to the village, styling himself "Old Man of the Southern Hill," who told men's fortunes as if he saw them before his eyes, and his fame spread. Li called him in and asked him to cast his horoscope. The old man started up in alarm and respect. "This is a true king!" he said. Li was much alarmed and thought him mad; but the old man gravely repeated it. Li was half persuaded. "Is it possible," he said, "for one who begins with empty hands to receive the mandate and become emperor?" "Not so," said the old man. "From ancient times the emperors have mostly risen from among the common people; who was ever born a Son of Heaven?" Li, fascinated, moved forward and begged to be shown the way. The old man, with a bold air, took upon himself the role of the Sleeping Dragon (Zhuge Liang). "First," he said, "let us prepare several thousand suits of armor and several thousand bows and crossbows." Li feared no one would follow him. "Let me," said the old man, "go and bind the various mountain bands in deep alliance with Your Majesty, and spread it abroad that Your Majesty is a true Son of Heaven; then the troops of the hills will surely respond." Li, delighted, sent him off. He opened his buried gold and had armor made. The old man came back after some days. "By Your Majesty's awe and favor," he said, "and with my three inches of tongue, there is not a mountain that does not wish to hold the whip and serve under your standard." Within ten days several thousand men had indeed submitted. So the old man was made commander-in-chief; a great banner was raised and colored pennons set up like a forest; the mountains were garrisoned and palisades thrown up, and the name of the rebel spread far and wide. The district magistrate came with troops to suppress him, but the old man led the bandits and routed him utterly. In fear the magistrate appealed to Yanzhou, whose troops came from afar, but the old man laid an ambush and fell upon them, and the army was cut to pieces with heavy loss. The rebellion grew the more, its followers numbering tens of thousands, and Li proclaimed himself "King of the Nine Mountains." The old man, troubled that they were short of horses, heard that the capital was sending a convoy of horses to the south, and sent a band to waylay and seize them. From this time the fame of the "King of the Nine Mountains" spread far and wide. He made the old man "Grand Protector-General of the Realm." Lying at ease in his mountain stronghold, he grew so arrogant that he thought the yellow robe of empire was within his grasp. The eastern governor, on account of the stolen horses, was already planning to march against him, and now, receiving the report from Yanzhou, sent several thousand picked troops to close in from six directions. The banners and pennons of the army filled the valleys. The "King of the Nine Mountains," in a panic, called the old man to counsel, but he was nowhere to be found. In his straits the king climbed the mountain and gazed about him. "Now I know how great is the power of the Court!" he sighed. The mountain was stormed and he was taken, and his wife and children were put to death. Only then did he understand that the old man was the fox, come to avenge the slaughter of his race.
The Historian of the Strange remarks: "A man who keeps his wife and children at home and sits behind closed doors with bare head—how should he be killed? And even if killed, how should his whole clan be exterminated? The fox's scheme was clever indeed. But a soil without seed will bear no crop even though watered; in the very cruelty with which the man killed the foxes there was already the root of brigandage, so that the fox could cultivate it and pay him back. Try now to take a man by the wayside and say to him, 'You are the Son of Heaven!'—there is none but will be alarmed and flee. Yet plainly led on to the destruction of his clan, and still gladly listening, his wife and children slain—what is there to say of such a man? Yet when men listen to words of treason, at first they are angry, then they doubt, then they believe, and only when name and body are both destroyed do they awake to their error. It is mostly so."