ies: he is the god who can _avert
war and protect the people from its horrors_.

A youth, whose name was originally Chang-sheng, afterward changed to
Shou-chang, and then to Yuen-chang, who was born near Chieh Liang,
in Ho Tung (now the town of Chieh Chou in Shansi), and was of an
intractable nature, having exasperated his parents, was shut up in a
room from which he escaped by breaking through the window. In one of
the neighbouring houses he heard a young lady and an old man weeping
and lamenting. Running to the foot of the wall of the compound, he
inquired the reason of their grief. The old man replied that though
his daughter was already engaged, the uncle of the local official,
smitten by her beauty, wished to make her his concubine. His petitions
to the official had only been rejected with curses.

Beside himself with rage, the youth seized a sword and went and killed
both the official and his uncle. He escaped through the T'ung Kuan, the
pass to Shensi. Having with difficulty avoided capture by the barrier
officials, he knelt down at the side of a brook to wash his face;
when lo! his appearance was completely transformed. His complexion
had become reddish-grey, and he was absolutely unrecognizable. He
then presented himself with assurance before the officers, who asked
him his name. "My name is Kuan," he replied. It was by that name that
he was thereafter known.

The Meat-seller's Challenge

One day he arrived at Chu-chou, a dependent sub-prefecture of Peking,
in Chihli. There Chang Fei, a butcher, who had been selling his meat
all the morning, at noon lowered what remained into a well, placed
over the mouth of the well a stone weighing twenty-five pounds, and
said with a sneer: "If anyone can lift that stone and take my meat,
I will make him a present of it!" Kuan Yue, going up to the edge of
the well, lifted the stone with the same ease as he would a tile,
took the meat, and made off. Chang Fei pursued him, and eventually
the two came to blows, but no one dared to separate them. Just then
Liu Pei, a hawker of straw shoes, arrived, interposed, and put a stop
to the fight. The community of ideas which they found they possessed
soon gave rise to a firm friendship between the three men.

The Oath in the Peach-orchard

Another account represents Liu Pei and Chang Fei as having entered
a village inn to drink wine, when a man of gigantic stature pushing
a wheelbarrow stopped at the door to rest. As he seated