Stories from Ancient China: Take Principles Seriously and Accumulate Virtue

Wei Shiju lived during the Beiwei Dynasty of ancient China and was from Julu.

One year the harvest was poor and so as a result, the price of grain was skyrocketing. Mr. Wei Shiju, however, opened his grain storage and sold his rice for half the price of what others charged. Many poor people in that county relied on his support to survive.

He used to tell people, "I charged half price in a bad year, and that was equivalent to a full price in a good year. Although I made less, I have not lost anything."

Wei Shiju considered principles more important than profit and rescued other people in crisis. His son Wei Shoujie was an official and achieved a rank similar to today's prime minister. This really shows that good will be rewarded with good and families that accumulate good deeds will have good fortune.

It is true that good will be rewarded with good. People have experienced and attested to this principle for thousands of years. If ancestors accumulated good deeds and virtue, their offspring for generations to come would benefit. Books from every dynasty have recorded many such cases.