Wu from Chu

Wang Wu of Chu ( Chinese  楚武王 , Pinyin Chǔ Wǔ Wáng , died 690 BC) was a Chinese ruler during the spring and autumn annals . He ruled the state of Chu for fifty years from 740 BC until his death; In 704 BC he made himself the first king of Chu.

Name and parentage

His personal birth name was Chè (徹), but later chroniclers changed it to Tong (通) in order to comply with a naming convention with the emperor Han Wudi of the same name, who bore the same name, also the courtly name Tong . The Shiji also calls him by name Xiong Tong . He came from the Mi (羋) family and the Xióng (熊) clan. The name Wu is the posthumous name that refers to his military successes.

He was the second son of Zi Xiao'ao (霄 敖) and took over the reign of his brother Fenmao (蚡 冒), whom he rumored to have murdered in order to succeed him.

Regency

King Wu married Deng Man (邓 曼), a daughter of the prince of Deng , a Chu vassal state.

The powerful Principality of Chu was formally part of the Zhou Empire , but had only submitted to the Western Zhou shortly before the decline . Under the Eastern Zhou , the prince of Chu kept the lower-ranking title of Zi (子, usually translated as vice count) at the royal court . The Shiji reports that in the summer of his 37th year in office, Wu was tired of his title Zi and called his vassals for a meeting. In the presence of his neighboring princes and vassals from the states of Ba , Pu, Deng, Jiao, Luo, Zhen, Shen, Er, Yun and Jiang, the vice count declared himself Wang of Chu, i.e. king. The princes of the states of Huang and Sui were reprimanded for not coming, Sui was also attacked and his prince overthrown. In the following years all the princes of Chu called themselves Wang (king).

Historians explain this self-exaltation with diplomatic difficulties which the Zi of Chu must have had with its southern neighbors. Leaders of those non-Chinese regions and tribes also called themselves kings. After Wu had been denied a proper rank (such as a gong ) by the ruling Zhou for decades despite pleading, the appointment of a king should be understood less as an act of rebellion against the Zhou kings than as an effort to gain the respect of the vassals and To preserve neighboring empires. For a long time Chu remained the only Chinese principality that was ruled by a ruler formally equal to the Zhou king, and it soon claimed the status of an independent state that was no longer a vassal of the Zhou. It was only at the time of the Warring States that a majority of the mighty gongs dared to call themselves kings as well.

When Chu Wuwang came to power, he also codified a bureaucratic structure that was different from that in Zhou-China. These included the official titles for the head of government ( Chinese  令尹 , Pinyin Lìngyǐn ) and for the military commander ( Chinese  莫 敖 , Pinyin Mo'ao ). The first incumbents in these offices were his paternal uncle, Dou Bobi (鬬 伯 比), and his own son Qu Xia (屈 瑕) , respectively . However, Qu Xia failed as a commander in his first major campaign against the state of Luo in 699 BC. And committed suicide. In 690, Wu himself led another criminal campaign against Sui when he fell ill and died near the Han River . The Lìngyǐn Dou Qi (鬬 祁), the king's cousin, then led the army as planned, forcing the leaders of Sui to submit.

After this campaign, Wu's second son Xiong Zi ascended the throne as Chu Wenwang (King Wen of Chu). A third witnessed son was Ziyuan (子 元), who never ruled.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Lothar von Falkenhausen (ed. Michael Loewe , Edward L. Shaughnessy): The waning of the bronze age . In: The Cambridge History of Ancient China , Cambridge 1999. p. 516. ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8 . Digitized