







不义之财 is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “Money obtained through illicit, dishonest, or unethical means”. Ill-gotten gains. Literally, “Unrighteous wealth”.
In ancient Qi state, Prime Minister Tian Jizi presented some gold, given to him by a subordinate, to his mother.
His mother, astonished, questioned if he had accumulated so much wealth in just three years as prime minister, implying that it couldn't all be his legitimate salary without any expenses.
Tian Jizi had no choice but to confess the truth.
His mother then advised him that as a gentleman (士大夫), he should cultivate his character and not be greedy for ill-gotten gains.
Tian Jizi immediately returned all the gold.

Choose character parts and animate their colors, together or in stroke order
Open the tool →
Create PNGs with pinyin, highlight character parts or remove strokes
Open the tool →
Printable tracing sheets with a QR learning companion
Open the tool →
Chinese and English fill-in vocabulary worksheets
Open the tool →不义之财 (bù yì zhī cái) is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “Money obtained through illicit, dishonest, or unethical means”.
不义之财 is pronounced bù yì zhī cái in Mandarin Chinese.
Literally, 不义之财 means “Unrighteous wealth”. It is used to mean “Money obtained through illicit, dishonest, or unethical means”.
不义之财 comes from a classical Chinese story dating back to ancient China. The full story is on this page.
不义:不正当,不合理。不应该得到的或以不正当的手段获得的钱财。