Tang Xianzu of Shidang in Chizhou was the grandson of Tang Yungong, Vice Minister of War. In the fifth year of the Shaoxing reign he was magistrate of Jing county.
When he first took the seal, the head clerk told him that on the third day he ought to visit the shrines.
Tang cursed him: “I practise the Five Thunder method. The gods are in the palm of my hand. Why should I bend my body and bow before a clay idol?”
He only ordered two seats of food and drink set out in the shrine hall, had the outriders withdrawn, and went straight in to drink facing the god as host and guest, at his own rank, and spoke of how he relied on the god’s protection in office.
The clerks and people who saw it muttered among themselves and were alarmed.
That night a sudden storm rose, mountain water flooded, and the county offices were drowned seven or eight feet deep, up to the sleeping benches, with most of the documents and boxes in the water — though nobody was hurt. Everyone took it as the punishment for slighting the god.
Tang, his house damaged, cut timber in the woods and rebuilt it, and then had a painter named Wang paint seventy-two large figures of spirit generals, and served them with incense and candles in the utmost devotion.
The following spring he was impeached and dismissed by the tea and salt intendant Li Tangqian.
