Caishen

Also Known As: also written Cai Shen and Ts’ai Shen; Chinese for “god of wealth”; in his best-known form called Zhao Gongming, Marshal Zhao, or the True Lord of the Dark Altar
Region/Culture: East Asia
Mythos: Chinese Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: Caishen is the Chinese god of wealth, a title worn by several figures at once, chief among them the tiger-riding Marshal Zhao Gongming, whose four attendants summon treasure and bring profit.
Role in Mythos: He governs the coming and going of money, and is welcomed into homes and shops at the start of each lunar year.
Relation to Humans: Households and merchants greet Caishen with firecrackers, incense and food at the New Year in the hope that he will enter and stay. The oldest writings about Zhao Gongming show him doing the opposite of giving, since he first appears as a spirit general who carried sickness to people and collected their souls.

Before dawn on the fifth day of the first lunar month the firecrackers start, and they do not start politely. Shopkeepers in the old trading towns of the lower Yangzi used to race one another to be first, because the god walking the roads that morning could only come through one door at a time, and nobody wanted to be the house he reached last. Doors and windows were thrown open. Smoke hung in the cold street. On the table inside waited fish, fruit, wine and dumplings folded into the shape of silver ingots.

The guest they were all shouting for was Caishen, and the first difficulty with him is that he is several people. The name is a job title. It means the god of wealth, and over the centuries the post has been filled by a general, a murdered prince, a retired statesman and a red-faced hero of the Three Kingdoms, sometimes all in the same city. Print-makers solved the problem the practical way. They drew him as a set.

The one most people mean is Zhao Gongming, and his history is not what a visitor to his temple would expect. In the fourth-century collection of strange tales compiled by Gan Bao, he is one of three spirit generals sent down by heaven to gather human lives. Early Daoist writings class him with the demons of pestilence. For the better part of a thousand years his name belonged on charms against sickness. A Ming-dynasty handbook of the gods still remembers that side of him, describing a marshal who commands thunder and drives off plague, but it adds a new line of work: he sees that those who buy and sell deal fairly and come away with a profit. Trade had boomed in the Song era, and the god changed with the times. The bringer of fever became the keeper of the cash box.

That same handbook gives him a life story. He was a man of the late Warring States who went into the Zhongnan mountains when Qin swallowed the other kingdoms, and practised the Way there until he was no longer quite mortal. Much later, when the first Celestial Master asked heaven for a guardian to watch over his elixir furnace, the Jade Emperor sent Zhao and named him Marshal of the Dark Altar.

The story everyone knows comes from a novel. The sixteenth-century Investiture of the Gods retells the fall of the Shang dynasty as a war of sorcerers, and Zhao Gongming enters it as a hermit of Mount Emei who rides out on a black tiger to help an old friend on the losing side. He is close to unbeatable. His iron whip breaks whoever it lands on, his magic pearls blind and batter the immortals sent against him, and for a while the armies of the future Zhou kings can do nothing. So their strategist, Jiang Ziya, stops trying to fight him. On the advice of a wandering adept he builds a figure of straw, writes Zhao’s name on it, sets lamps at its head and feet, and bows before it day after day. In his own camp the hermit grows drowsy, then confused, then too weak to stand. After some three weeks Jiang Ziya takes a small bow and puts arrows through the straw man’s eyes and heart. Miles away, Zhao Gongming dies without a mark on him.

When the war is won and the dead are handed their offices in heaven, the man killed by a doll receives one of the better appointments. Jiang Ziya names him lord of the Dragon and Tiger Dark Altar and gives him four officers whose titles read like a merchant’s prayer: the one who summons treasure, the one who gathers valuables, the envoy who calls in wealth, and the immortal official of profit. Marshal Zhao and his four became the Wealth Gods of the Five Roads, and it is this party that the firecrackers greet on the fifth morning.

In temple images he is hard to mistake. The face is black or very dark, with a heavy beard and staring eyes. He wears armour and an iron cap, grips the iron whip in one fist, and often holds a gold ingot in the other. The black tiger crouches beneath him or under his boot. He does not look like a god of plenty. He looks like a bailiff.

He is called the military god of wealth, and the title has a civil twin. One holder is Bi Gan, a prince of the Shang and uncle to its last, worst king. Bi Gan told his nephew the truth about his conduct, and the king, curious to see whether a sage’s heart really had seven openings, had it cut out. Later generations reasoned that a man with no heart cannot play favourites, which made him the ideal hand to share out money. The other civil god is Fan Li, a minister of the ancient state of Yue who guided his king to victory, walked away from court at the height of his success, and grew rich as a trader under another name. He is said to have made a fortune and given it away more than once. These two are shown as pale, calm officials in red robes and winged hats, a sceptre or ingot in hand. Guan Yu, the sworn brother of the Three Kingdoms stories, is honoured as a second military god of wealth, favoured by merchants for his loyalty and his straight dealing. In Buddhist settings the same role is sometimes matched to Jambhala.

The old rule of thumb was that civil gods looked after earned and salaried money, and the military ones looked after the risky kind, the money of the market and the venture. Northern families welcomed the god on the second day of the year, southern ones on the fifth. Paper prints of him were bought fresh each New Year and pasted up where the household could see them.

What Caishen can do follows from where he came from. A spirit once trusted to deliver sickness on schedule can be trusted to deliver silver the same way, through his four officers, to the door that asks. He weighs trade and makes it come out even. His limits are just as plain. He was undone by a straw figure and a few arrows, and no weapon of his own helped. He passes through, and a house that wakes late may miss him. And nothing in his record says he hands out wealth to those who do not go looking for it. The handbook promises fair dealing and a decent profit. It does not promise more.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Caishen?

Caishen is the Chinese god of wealth. The name is a title held by several figures, the best known being Zhao Gongming, a tiger-riding marshal. Bi Gan, Fan Li and Guan Yu are also honoured as gods of wealth.

Is Caishen one god or many?

Caishen is many gods under one title. Zhao Gongming and Guan Yu are the military gods of wealth, while Bi Gan and Fan Li are the civil gods of wealth. Zhao Gongming also leads a group called the Wealth Gods of the Five Roads, made up of himself and four officers who summon treasure and bring profit.

Why does Caishen ride a black tiger?

The black tiger belongs to Zhao Gongming, the military form of Caishen. In the novel Investiture of the Gods he is a hermit of Mount Emei who rides a black tiger into the war between the Shang and the Zhou. Temple images keep the tiger beneath him, along with his iron whip and a gold ingot.

How did Zhao Gongming become the god of wealth?

In the oldest texts Zhao Gongming is a spirit general linked with plague and the collecting of souls. A Ming-dynasty handbook of the gods adds that he makes buying and selling fair and profitable. In Investiture of the Gods he is killed by Jiang Ziya, who shoots arrows into a straw figure of him, and is afterwards given a heavenly office with four wealth-bringing officers.

When is Caishen welcomed at Chinese New Year?

Caishen is welcomed on the fifth day of the first lunar month in southern China and on the second day in the north. Households and shops set off firecrackers, open their doors and lay out fish, fruit, wine and ingot-shaped dumplings so that the god will come in.