This article is about one of the less famous set of Eight Immortals. For the most popular set of "Eight Immortals", see Eight Immortals, which also contains a list of other sets of Eight Immortals. The Eight Immortals crossing the sea, from Myths and Legends of China, 1922 by E. T. C. Werner. ...

The Eight Immortals of Huainan (淮南八仙 in pinyin: huái nán bā xiān), also known as the Eight Gentlemen (八公 bā gōng), were the eight scholars under the patronage of Liu An (劉安 liú ān), the prince of Huainan during the Western Han Dynasty. They are not deified in any religions and the term "Immortal" is used metaphorically to describe their talent. Together, they wrote the book The Philosophers of Huainan (《淮南子》 huái nán zǐ), on the Daoist philosophy. Pinyin (拼音, pÄ«nyÄ«n) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin. ... Liu An (劉安, 179-122 BC) was an advisor to Emperor Wu of Han China and the inventor of tofu. ... Huainan (淮南市) is a city in Anhui province of the Peoples Republic of China and the seat of Huainan prefecture. ... The Han Dynasty (Traditional Chinese characters: 漢朝, Simplified Chinese characters: 汉朝, pinyin Hàncháo 202 BC - AD 220) followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. ... In language, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two seemingly unrelated subjects. ... For other uses of the words tao and dao, see Dao (disambiguation). ...

They are:

• Jin Chang (晉昌 jǐn chāng),
• Lei Bei (雷被 leí beì),
• Li Shang (李尚 lǐ shàng),
• Mao Bei (毛被 máo beì),
• Su Fei (蘇非 sū feì),
• Tian You (田由 tián yoú),
• Wu Bei (伍被 wǔ beì), and
• Zuo Wu (左吳 zǔo wú).

The Bagong Mountain ("Eight Gentlemen Mountain") in China is named after them.