The Feng Lei Yin generally played today is quite popular. Belonging to the Mei'an School, it was first published in the Mei'an Qinpu of 1931. The preface says it depicts a summer storm. There are several modern transcriptions and recordings of this melody, which uses a non-standard tuning (lowered third string).⁴

Before this, however, was a very popular melody named Feng Lei Yin that survives in at least 39 handbooks from 1539 to 1910.⁵ They all seem to be to be musically related to each other, using standard tuning, and unrelated to the modern melody of this title. To my knowledge the only recording of this earlier melody is my own.⁶

The earliest surviving tablature, in Fengxuan Xuanpin (1539), has no preface or section titles to suggest its theme.⁷ After this, though, these earlier handbooks relate through their prefaces at least four different stories connected to this version of the melody.

The second handbook to include this melody, Xilutang Qintong (1549), has the earliest surviving preface. This preface connects the melody with a story from the Golden Chord (Jin Teng) section of the classic Book of Documents.⁸ The same story is told in Qin Cao in conjunction with the melody Zhou Jin Teng.⁹ The story tells of a bound metal box containing Zhou Gong's promise of loyal service to Cheng Wang, son of Wu Wang. This loyal service allowed Cheng Wang later to succeed when he came of age. The section titles in Xilutang Qintong allude to this story; here comments are added (in parenthesis) to clarify this. There is a related story that says Zhou Gong wrote a Zhou Gong's Lament, declaring his loyalty, and played this for Cheng Wang on a qin made by Yu Sui.

Shortly after this Feng Lei Yin appears in Taiyin Chuanxi (1552 - 61) with a more general introduction and a prelude called Intonation of Increasing Abundance (Ziyi Yin¹⁰). Here the introduction is as follows.¹¹

This explanation is repeated in several later handbooks. Others, beginning with Qinyuan Xinchuan Quanbian (1670) mention a story about He Yun of Lu and his qin called Dragon's Jaws.¹² According to an apparently Ming dynasty edition of Qin Shi, He Yun himself made this instrument. Then one night while playing it three ancients arrived and said his qin was very good. They then taught him two pieces, Bright Moon and Wind and Thunder.

At least one surviving later handbook, Lü Hua (1833) connects Feng Lei Yin with the ancient melody title Pili Yin (Thunderbolt Prelude). Yuefu Shiji has several lyrics for this title in the Qin Melody Lyrics Section.¹³

Xu Jian, in Chapter 5B of his Outline History of the Qin, discusses Feng Lei Yin as a Tang dynasty piece by connecting it to Pili Yin. His reasoning seems to be that because there is a poem called Pili Yin by the Tang dynasty's Shen Quanqi, the two must be related. He quotes Shen's poem, then tells the story of Chu Shang Liang encountering wind and thunder while walking in the marshes. This telling of the story perhaps comes from the introduction to Pili Yin originally found in Qin Cao.¹⁴

For the melody, though he presents it as a Tang dynasty melody, Xu discusses the version in Wuzhizhai Qinpu (1722). That version, though musically related to the one in Fengxuan Xuanpin, is has many differences. The preface in Wuzhizhai Qinpu mentions only the story about He Yun of Lu.

 
Original Preface
None in Fengxuan Xuanpin.

 
8 sections
(section titles are from the Xilutang Qintong version, 1549)

1. The crops are fertile everywhere, (but Zhou Gong is often slandered; when he goes out on a military expedition it is said he will use the army to usurp the throne.)
2. (Suddenly there is) a violent wind and heavy rain.
3. The rolling thunder is frightening.
4. Crops are knocked over and trees uprooted.
5. (Suspecting this might be an omen of something, Cheng Wang orders) everyone to put on ceremonial garb, then they open a scroll (kept in a bound metal box)
6. (When Cheng Wang) grasps the scroll (and reads a vow Zhou Gong made years earlier to Wu Wang), he weeps at the realization (of Zhou Gong's unshakable loyalty).
7. A heavy rain causes the wind to go back where it came from.
8. There is a prosperous year in Haojing, (the Zhou capital city).

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. Feng Lei Yin 風雷引
44734.403 has only fenglei, with the following definitions.

1. The Yi Jing hexagrams 巽 xun (doubled feng trigram) and 震 zhen (doubled lei trigram). The 益 yi hexagram commentary says, 象曰，風雷，益。君子以見善則遷。有過則改。 The translation of this in Alfred Huang, The Complete I Ching (p.342) is:
   Wind and thunder support each other,
   An image of Increasing.
   In correspondence with this,
   The superior person follows the good when he sees it,
   And corrects his fault when he finds it.

2. 烈風迅雷也。 Strong wind and swift thunder.
3. Refers to loud sounds.
4. Great fear.
5. 勢盛 situation flourishes (?)

2. For further information on shang mode see Shenpin Shang Yi and Modality in Early Ming Qin Tablature.
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3. Image not yet online.
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4. Feng Lei Yin in Mei'an Qinpu:
This melody is totally unrelated to the present version. It uses "lowered third string" tuning: from standard tuning lower the third string a half tone, giving 1 2 3 5 6 1 2 . There are silk string qin recordings by Guan Pinghu and Wu Zonghan. It is discussed in Fredric Lieberman, A Chinese Zither Tutor, pp. 95 - 99.
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5. Zha's Guide 16/164/- (chart not yet online).
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6. Recorded in 2006. Available only as MP3 (see link at top.
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7. It is the 43rd piece in Fengxuan Xuanpin (風宣玄品, 1539), compiled by Zhu Houjiao (朱厚爝), (Prince of the) Hui Region, central Honan province. Zhu's general preface mentions his collecting his pieces from various schools. However, the handbook has no prefaces to individual melodies.
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8. 尚書 Shang Shu; it is a collection of pre-Han dynasty documents. This story is translated by James Hart in Patricia Ebrey (ed.), Chinese Civilization, a Source Book, pp.6-7.
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9. 周金縢 Zhou Jin Teng (Golden Chord of Zhou)
Qin Cao, Hejian Zage, #6, attributes this title to Zhou Gong, and tells a longer version of the same story as in Xilutang Qintong.
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10. 資益吟 Ziyi Yin
Ziyi Yin (Intonation of Increasing Abundance; 37605.xxx; 10/204 [ziyi]; 23/199/---). The title survives in only two handbooks, Taiyin Chuanxi and Taiyin Buyi. Both have three sections, have the same prefaces and are preludes to Feng Lei Yin. However, the melodies are completely different: the one in Taiyin Buyi seems to be loosely based on the old melody Tianfeng Huanpei (compare also Goudeng Yin); the one in Taiyin Chuanxi may be taken from another source or may be a new composition. Both prefaces to Ziyi Yin say,

11. The original Taiyin Chuanxi preface for Feng Lei Yin is:

12. 琴苑新傳全編 Qinyuan Xinchuan Quanbian(1670), the earliest to recount the story of He Yun and three ancients, says the story is in "Qin History", but it is not in Zhu Changwen's Qin Shi. Zhou Qingyun in his Qin Shi Bu tells essentially the same story in his short biography of He Yun, #25, giving as his source the Ming dynasty compendium 廣博物志 Guangbowu Zhi. Zhou's preface to Qin Shi Bu mentions a Qin Shi published in the Ming dynasty; perhaps that book also had this story.
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13. Pili Yin
43433.5 霹靂引 Pili Yin: qin melody name; only reference is to Yuefu Shiji, which it quotes. Zha's Guide does not give Pili Yin as an alternative title to Feng Lei Yin but as a separate melody (35/261/508) found only in the Japanese handbook 和文注琴譜 Hewenzhu Qinpu (QQJC XII, pp. 206 and 266. The melody is totally unrelated, setting to music the YFSJ lyrics by Shen Quanqi.

Pili Yin in Yuefu Shiji, Folio 57, #11 (qin lyrics section), has two conflicing explanations:

1. Qin Lun by Xie Xiyi says, "Xia Yu wrote Pili Yin."

2. Yuefu Jieti says, "When Chu Shang Liang was traveling in 雷澤 Thunder Marsh, thunder rolled down. So he played his qin and created this, calling it Pili Yin."

Guo Maoqian adds, "It is not known which is correct." There are then three sets of lyrics, as follows,

1. Emperor Jianwen of Liang

   來從東海上，發自南山陽。
   時聞連鼓響....

2. Xin Deyuan

   出地聲初奮，乘乾威更作。
   雲銜天笑明....

3. Shen Quanqi

   歲七月火伏而金生，客有鼓瑟於門者，奏霹靂之商聲....
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14. Xu Jian is perhaps telling this story from Qin History (琴史，卷二，楚商梁 Qin Shi, folio 2, #4; folio 2 has people of the Warring States Period). He quotes the biography there of Chu Shang Liang. That biography, which is fairly long, gives 琴操 Qin Cao as its source. For the story as related in a late edition of Qin Cao (a descendant of the one attributed to Cai Yong of the Han Dynasty) see Tong Kin-Woon, Qin Fu, pp.744-5.
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