Lun Zhi 倫直

In Chapter 106 of the Romance, Gongsun Yuan of Liaodong, though he has seized the position of his uncle Gongsun Gong and been enfeoffed by Cao Rui as Grand Marshal and Duke of Lelang, is still not satisfied; after conferring with his followers he styles himself King of Yan and changes the era name to the 1st year of Shaohan. When the Deputy General Jia Fan remonstrates that, since the Central Plains treat him with the rank of a supreme duke, turning against them would be contrary to what is right, and that Sima Yi is a commander whom even Zhuge, Marquis Wu of Western Shu, could not defeat, Gongsun Yuan, in a great rage, shouts at his attendants to bind Jia Fan and is about to have him beheaded. Romance, Ch. 106 §2–3

Then the Army Adviser Lun Zhi says that Jia Fan's words are right and, citing the sages' saying that when a state is about to perish there are always evil portents, reports three strange events in the state. Recently a dog wearing a headcloth and a red robe climbed onto a roof and walked about like a man; when a villager south of the city was cooking rice, a small child was found steamed to death inside the rice steamer; and in the northern market of Xiangping the ground caved in to form a hole, from which a lump of flesh welled up. The lump, he says, was several feet around and had a complete head and face, with eyes, ears, mouth and nose, lacking only hands and feet; neither blade nor arrow could harm it, and no one knew what it was. Romance, Ch. 106 §4

Lun Zhi relays that a diviner said of it that it had form but was not complete, had a mouth but no voice, and that the state was about to perish and so revealed its image. These three things, he remonstrates, are all inauspicious omens, so his lord should avoid the ill-omened and pursue the auspicious, and must not act rashly. Gongsun Yuan flies into a great rage, shouts at his guards to bind Lun Zhi, and has him beheaded in the marketplace together with Jia Fan. He then makes the General-in-Chief Bei Yan Commander-in-Chief and Yang Zuo leader of the vanguard, raises 150,000 troops of Liaodong and invades the Central Plains. Romance, Ch. 106 §5

The Wei army led by Sima Yi surrounds the city of Xiangping on all sides, and Sima Yi, seeing a star as large as a grain measure fall from northeast of Mount Shou to southeast of Xiangping, says that in five days Gongsun Yuan will surely be beheaded where the star fell. When the food in the city runs out, Gongsun Yuan and his son open the south gate by night and flee southeast, but, surrounded on all sides, they dismount and surrender, and are beheaded on Sima Yi's orders. After Sima Yi enters Xiangping and kills Gongsun Yuan's clan and all the officials who took part in his plot, someone tells him that Jia Fan and Lun Zhi had earnestly remonstrated with Gongsun Yuan that he must not rebel and were both killed by him. Sima Yi raises burial mounds over their graves and brings honor to their descendants. Romance, Ch. 106 §13 · 19 · 21 · 24–27