Heart governs the blood and vessels

All the blood and vessels of the body are subordinate to the heart. Plain Questions (素问 sù wèn, wǔ zàng shēng chéng piān) states, All blood belongs to the heart. Plain Questions (素问 sù wèn, wěi lùn) says, The heart governs the blood and vessels of the whole body. In Wáng Bīng’s annotations of Plain Questions (素问 sù wèn, wǔ zàng shēng chéng piān), we find the statement The liver stores blood, and the heart moves it; when a person moves, blood moves through all the channels, whereas when he rests, the blood returns to the liver. This statement shows with greater clarity than the original statements of The Inner Classic (内经 nèi jīng) that the speed of the heartbeat was understood to be related to exertion. It would also appear to indicate that heart was understood to pump (move) the blood around the body, although the modern notion of blood circulation is not implicit here. Note that although the blood is governed by the heart, it is intimately related to the liver and the spleen.