The Four Perils 四凶
sì xiōng · Wade-Giles: ssŭ-hsiung
The Four Perils (四凶) are the villains of the Chinese bestiary: four monsters so steeped in vice that their names became Chinese words for human failings. Taotie is greed, Taowu is stubbornness, Qiongqi is slander rewarded, Hundun is chaos itself. Every rogues'-gallery monster team in a Chinese fantasy game — and many beyond — descends from this quartet.
They Began as Men
The twist: the Four Perils started not as beasts but as four incorrigible sons of four great clans. The Zuo Zhuan (左传, 7th century BCE) gives each one a defining vice, and the people named him after it. When Shun rose to power as Yao's minister, he exiled all four clans to the distant frontiers:
流四凶族浑敦、穷奇、梼杌、饕餮，投诸四裔，以御魑魅。
"Shun exiled the four evil clans — Hundun, Qiongqi, Taowu, and Taotie — casting them to the four distant frontiers, to stand ward against the chimei demons."
Zuo Zhuan, Duke Wen, Year 18 (左传 · 文公十八年)
From Exiles to Beasts
Over the following centuries, the four clan-names fused with the man-eating beasts of the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Hundun merged with Dijiang, the faceless dancer of Mount Tian; Qiongqi with the winged tiger of the northern wastes; Taowu with the human-faced beast of the Western Wilderness; Taotie with the Paoxiao of Mount Gouwu, whose eyes sit beneath its armpits. By the Han dynasty the pairing was complete: four exiled villains, four monstrous bodies, one canonical roster.
The Quartet
- Hundun 混沌 (hùn dùn)
Hundun (混沌) began in the Classic of Mountains and Seas (compiled c. 4th–1st century BCE) as Dijiang, a faceless god of Mount Tian shaped like a yellow sack, crimson as cinnabar fire, with six legs and four wings, who 'knows song and dance.' The Zhuangzi (3rd century BCE) recast it as a parable about good intentions killing chaos. Later tradition made Hundun one of the Four Perils and gave its name to the primordial chaos Pangu split open at creation. Folk etymology also ties it to hundun wontons — chaos wrapped in dough. - Qiongqi 穷奇 (qióng qí)
Qiongqi (穷奇) is a man-eating beast of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, first described around the 4th century BCE in two contradictory forms: a winged tiger that devours people head-first, and a hedgehog-bristled ox on Mount Gui with the cry of a howling hound. A 3rd-century BCE chronicle, the Zuo Zhuan, recast Qiongqi as a corrupt son of the Shaohao clan, and Han texts canonized it as one of the Four Perils. The Han compendium Shen Yi Jing gave it its most infamous trait: hearing a dispute, it eats the party in the right. - Taowu 梼杌 (táo wù)
Taowu (梼杌) is the Incorrigible One — the stubbornest of China's Four Perils. The Spring and Autumn chronicle Zuo Zhuan (compiled c. 4th century BCE) names him the unworthy son of Zhuanxu: unteachable, insolent, a scorner of virtue, exiled by the sage-king Shun among the four great fiends. The Han-era Shen Yi Jing gives him a beast's body — tiger frame, dog fur, human face, boar tusks, and a tail a full eighteen chi long. Where the glutton Taotie devours, Taowu refuses to learn; two millennia on, his name still means pig-headed, irredeemable wickedness. - Taotie 饕餮 (tāo tiè)
The taotie (饕餮) is a man-eating beast of the Classic of Mountains and Seas (compiled c. 4th–1st century BCE), described in its northern chapters as a sheep-bodied, human-faced creature with eyes beneath its armpits. By the 7th century BCE, the Zuo Zhuan had made 'Taotie' the name of a notoriously greedy man, later counted among the Four Perils. From the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) on, its glaring face — the 'taotie mask' — decorated bronze ritual vessels, turning the beast into China's enduring emblem of insatiable appetite. Modern Chinese still calls a lavish feast a 'taotie banquet' and a gourmet a 'laotao'.
Four Clans, Four Vices
| Peril | Parent clan | Vice | Beast form (Shanhaijing) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hundun 混沌 | 帝鸿氏 clan of Dihong, often identified with the Yellow Emperor | Hides virtue and befriends the wicked — chaos and wilful ignorance | The faceless Dijiang of Mount Tian: a six-legged, four-winged sack of flesh that knows song and dance |
| Qiongqi 穷奇 | 少皞氏 clan of Shaohao | Destroys trust and hates the loyal, spreading slander — justice inverted | A winged tiger of the northern wastes that eats people beginning with the head |
| Taowu 梼杌 | 颛顼氏 clan of Zhuanxu | Cannot be taught — obstinate, fierce, and incorrigible | A tiger-bodied, human-faced beast of the Western Wilderness, with boar tusks and a tail one zhang eight chi long |
| Taotie 饕餮 | 缙云氏 clan of Jinyun, often identified with the Flame Emperor | Insatiable gluttony — greedy for food and hoarded wealth alike | The Paoxiao of Mount Gouwu: sheep-bodied, human-faced, eyes beneath the armpits, tiger teeth and human claws |
Exiles at the Gates
The sentence that created them is stranger than a simple banishment: the four villains were not destroyed but repurposed — 投诸四裔，以御魑魅, set to guard the borders against worse demons beyond. Their afterlives then split. Taotie lent its face to the masks of Shang dynasty bronzes and its name to the modern gourmet (老饕, a "devourer"; 饕餮盛宴, a "taotie feast"). Hundun became the ordinary word for primordial chaos — and, by folk etymology, for wontons (馄饨). Taowu survives as an insult for the hopelessly stubborn. Qiongqi, the slanderer, lives on mostly in games and fantasy, where the quartet reunites as a boss team — punishing the righteous, as ever.
Note: the Canon of Shun (尚书 · 舜典) records a different set of exiles — Gun, Gonggong, Huandou, and the Sanmiao — and some early texts call the perils the "Four Criminals" (四罪). The beastly roster above became standard by Han times.