The Case of the Five Hitmen and Ten Oligarchs

News outlets such as the BBC have been retelling a story about a failed business hit in Nanning, China.

A group of hitmen have been jailed after repeatedly trying to subcontract a job to each other in Guangxi, China.

Businessman Tan Youhui hired a hitman to “take out” his competitor for $282,000 (£218,000), a court heard.

But the hitman hired another man to do the job, offering $141,000. That man hired another hitman, who hired another hitman, who hired another hitman.

The plan crumbled when the final hitman met the man, named only as Wei, in a cafe and proposed faking his death.

All six men – the five hitmen and Tan – were convicted of attempted murder by the court in Nanning, Guangxi, following a trial that lasted three years.

Some people might see this as a story about outsourcing, neoliberal capitalism, or the rough-and-tumble nature of some things in China. I have a classical education so this made me think of the fall of the Bacchidae of Corinth in the seventh century BCE. The story was told by Herodotus two centuries later, and he puts it in the mouth of someone telling the Spartans that it is terrible to be ruled by a monarch or tyrant, so beware:

For the Corinthian State was ordered in such manner as I will show. The Few ruled; these few, called Bacchiadae, held sway in the city, marrying and giving in marriage among themselves. Now Amphion, one of these men, had a lame daughter, whose name was Labda.​ Seeing that none of the Bacchiadae would marry her, she was wedded to Eetion son of Echecrates, of the township of Petra, a Lapith by lineage, of the posterity of Caeneus. No sons being born to him by this wife or any other, he set out to Delphi to enquire concerning issue; and straightway as he entered the Pythian priestess spoke these verses to him:

Eetion, yet high honour is thine, though honour’d thou art not.
Labda conceiveth anon; and a rolling rock she shall bear thee,
Fated on princes to fall, and execute justice at Corinth.

.. (After thinking about the omen they decided) to destroy whatever should be born to Eetion. Then, as soon as his wife was delivered, they sent ten men of their clan to the township where Eetion dwelt, to kill the child. These men came to Petra and passing into Eetion’s courtyard asked for the child; and Labda, knowing nothing of the purpose of their coming, and thinking that they asked out of friendliness to the child’s father, brought it and gave it into the hands of one of them. Now they had planned on their way (as the story goes) that the first of them who received the child should dash it to the ground. So then when Labda brought and gave the child, by heaven’s providence it smiled at the man who took it, and he saw that, and compassion forbade him to kill it, and in that compassion he delivered it to a second, and he again to a third; and thus it passed from hand to hand to each of the ten, for none would make an end of it. So they gave the child back to its mother and went out, and stood before the door reproaching and upbraiding one another, but chiefly him who had first received it, for that he had not done according to their agreement; till as time passed they had a mind to go in again and all have a hand in the killing. But it was written that Eetion’s offspring should be the source of ills for Corinth. For Labda heard all this where she stood close to the very door; and she feared lest they should change their minds and again take the child, and kill it; wherefore she bore it away and hid it where she thought it would be hardest to find, in a chest; for she knew that if they returned and set about searching they would seek in every place; which they did. They came and sought, but not finding they resolved to go their ways and say to those that sent them that they had done all their bidding. So they went away and said this.

Herodotus 5.92 https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Herodotus/5C*.html#92

Just like the hitmen in Guangxi, the ten oligarchs agreed to kill their target. And just like the hitmen, when it came time to do the deed they passed it on to someone else.

I’m not a very good mercenary, so why not support this site with a modest donation on Patreon, Paypal, or other sites?

(scheduled 25 July 2023, posted by accident on 26 October 2024)