The Zuo zhuan and the Shiji give two accounts of how Jin destroyed the Zhao clan and gave its lands back to the one surviving boy

The Orphan of Zhao is told in two histories that disagree, and later as a play. The older Zuo zhuan says Zhao Ying had an affair with Zhuang Ji of the Zhao household, and his brothers Zhao Tong and Zhao Kuo exiled him to Qi. In 583 BC Zhuang Ji told the ruler of Jin the two brothers were plotting rebellion. Jin killed them and gave the Zhao land to Qi Xi. Her son Zhao Wu was raised with her in the duke's palace. The minister Han Jue warned that if the line of such loyal ancestors had no heir, good men would fear. The ruler made Wu head of the clan and returned the land. Sima Qian's Shiji, written centuries later, says the official Tu'an Gu attacked the Zhao without authorization and wiped out the clan. Two retainers, Gongsun Chujiu and Cheng Ying, hid the baby Zhao Wu and passed off another man's infant as him. Soldiers killed Gongsun and that infant. Years later Han Jue told Duke Jing the orphan lived. The duke returned Zhao Wu's fields and towns and destroyed Tu'an Gu's clan. Cheng Ying then killed himself. In Ji Junxiang's 13th-century play, the substitute baby is Cheng Ying's own son. A French translation published in 1735 was the first European translation of a Chinese play, and Voltaire's version opened in Paris in 1755. Zhao Wu later ran the government of Jin.