During the Spring and Autumn period, at the border between the states of Qi and Lu, there was a remote village called Liuxia Village, nestled among high mountains and dense forests where most locals made a living by logging and hunting.
During the Warring States period, as feudal lords fought for supremacy and desperately needed soldiers, the states of Qi and Lu frequently came to Liuxia to conscript men into their armies.
In the village of Liuxia, a family named Zhan had a son called Zhan Zhi, who was built like a tiger with a bear's back—broad-shouldered and powerful. To dodge military conscription, he fled deep into the mountains.
More than a month later, when the dust had settled, Zhan Zhi returned home only to find the village huts burned to ashes and his parents nowhere to be found.
“We can’t just sit and wait for death!” Zhan Zhi gathered the young men who had fled back, armed them with axes and bamboo arrows, and charged toward Qiyang City by the Yi River.
After a bloody battle, the rebel army of Zhan Zhi stormed Qiyang City, threw open the prison gates, and freed his imprisoned brothers.
"We are people captured by the Marquis of Yu to be offered to the Marquis of Lu. We heard that Qi and Lu are about to go to war, and they seize everyone they see. In many villages, the young have either fled or been captured, leaving no one to farm or hunt. The elderly and children in the countryside cannot survive..."
Zhan Zhi learned from the prisoners that a group of elderly and weak villagers were being sent southwest to the Zeng state to make armor and battle robes for Lord Zeng. Thinking his own parents might be in Zeng, and knowing the lord would not let the matter rest, Zhan Zhi reasoned, "Since Zeng is a military depot, why not seize what we need—weapons and supplies—rather than start from scratch?"
Zengcheng was built on a cliff, steep and perilous. Zhan Zhi, skilled from childhood in climbing mountains and scaling cliffs, led his brothers on a dark, windy night to quietly ascend the fortress known as "the Golden City of Southern Lu," catching the Marquis of Zeng off guard and ultimately capturing Zengcheng.
The Duke of Zeng, having narrowly escaped with his life, rushed in panic to report to the Duke of Lu in Qufu.
"Useless! A few country bumpkins have you this disheveled! I'm giving you 50 war chariots and a thousand armored soldiers. Now retract the Zeng city and bring me the head of Robber Zhi."
As a result, Duke Zeng's entire army was annihilated, and Zhan Zhi's forces expanded to hundreds of war chariots and 9,000 soldiers. From then on, they "ran rampant across the land," striking terror into slave-owning nobles. Wherever the "Zhi" banner pointed, "large states fortified their cities, small states retreated into their strongholds."
The slave owners regarded Zhan Zhi as a thorn in their side, slandering him as cruel and violent, falsely accusing him of "killing innocents daily with ruthless tyranny," and labeling him "Robber Zhi."
Later, the idiom "baoli zisui" came to describe someone who is cruel, brutal, and acts with reckless abandon.
Source: *Records of the Grand Historian*, "Biography of Boyi"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "暴戾恣睢" came to describe how someone is cruel, brutal, and acts with reckless abandon.