here he was venerated as the Spirit of Happiness. It was in
this simple way that there came into being a god whose portraits and
images abound everywhere throughout the country, and who is worshipped
almost as universally as the God of Riches himself.

Another person who attained to the dignity of God of Happiness (known
as Tseng-fu Hsiang-kung, 'the Young Gentleman who Increases Happiness')
was Li Kuei-tsu, the minister of Emperor Wen Ti of the Wei dynasty,
the son of the famous Ts'ao Ts'ao, but in modern times the honour
seems to have passed to Kuo Tzu-i. He was the saviour of the T'ang
dynasty from the depredations of the Turfans in the reign of the
Emperor Hsuean Tsung. He lived A.D. 697-781, was a native of Hua Chou,
in Shensi, and one of the most illustrious of Chinese generals. He
is very often represented in pictures clothed in blue official robes,
leading his small son Kuo Ai to Court.

The God of Wealth

As with many other Chinese gods, the proto-being of the God of Wealth,
Ts'ai Shen, has been ascribed to several persons. The original and
best known until later times was Chao Kung-ming. The accounts of him
differ also, but the following is the most popular.

When Chiang Tzu-ya was fighting for Wu Wang of the Chou dynasty
against the last of the Shang emperors, Chao Kung-ming, then a
hermit on Mount O-mei, took the part of the latter. He performed
many wonderful feats. He could ride a black tiger and hurl pearls
which burst like bombshells. But he was eventually overcome by the
form of witchcraft known in Wales as _Ciurp Creadh_. Chiang Tzu-ya
made a straw image of him, wrote his name on it, burned incense and
worshipped before it for twenty days, and on the twenty-first shot
arrows made of peach-wood into its eyes and heart. At that same
moment Kung-ming, then in the enemy's camp, felt ill and fainted,
and uttering a cry gave up the ghost.

Later on Chiang Tzu-ya persuaded Yuean-shih T'ien-tsun to release from
the Otherworld the spirits of the heroes who had died in battle,
and when Chao Kung-ming was led into his presence he praised his
bravery, deplored the circumstances of his death, and canonized him
as President of the Ministry of Riches and Prosperity.

The God of Riches is universally worshipped in China; images and
portraits of him are to be seen everywhere. Talismans, trees of which
the branches are strings of cash, and the fruits ingots of gold,
to be obtained merely by shaking them down, a