Chu (state)
Chu (state)
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Chu (state)

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Chu (state)

Chu (Chinese: ; pinyin: Chǔ; Wade–Giles: Ch'u, Old Chinese: *s-r̥aʔ) was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. Their first ruler was King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BC. Chu was located in the south of the Zhou heartland and lasted during the Spring and Autumn period. At the end of the Warring States period it was annexed by the Qin in 223 BC during the Qin's wars of unification.

Also known as Jing () and Jingchu (荊楚), Chu included most of the present-day provinces of Hubei and Hunan, along with parts of Chongqing, Guizhou, Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. For more than 400 years, the Chu capital Danyang was located at the junction of the Dan and Xi Rivers near present-day Xichuan County, Henan, but later moved to Ying. The house of Chu originally bore the ancestral temple surname Nai ( OC: /*rneːlʔ/) which was later written as Mi ( OC: /*meʔ/). They also bore the lineage name Yan ( OC: /*qlamʔ/, /*qʰɯːm/) which would later be written Xiong ( OC: /*ɢʷlɯm/).

According to legends recounted in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, the ruling family of Chu descended from the Yellow Emperor and his grandson and successor Zhuanxu. Zhuanxu's great-grandson Wuhui (吳回) was put in charge of fire by Emperor Ku and given the title Zhurong. Wuhui's son Luzhong (陸終) had six sons, all born by Caesarian section. The youngest, Jilian, adopted the ancestral surname Mi. Jilian's descendant Yuxiong was the teacher of King Wen of Zhou (r. 1099–1050 BC). After the Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty, King Cheng (r. 1042–1021 BC) enfeoffed Yuxiong's great-grandson Xiong Yi with the fiefdom of Chu in the Nanyang Basin and the hereditary title of (, "viscount"). Then the first capital of Chu was established at Danyang (present-day Xichuan in Henan).

Sinologist Yuri Pines wrote that Chu originated as a normative Zhou polity that gradually developed cultural assertiveness in tandem with the increase in its political power, rather than being a "barbarian entity" drawn to the glory of the Zhou culture as suggested in the Mencius, and that divergent cultural patterns associated with Chu only emerged during the Spring and Autumn period.

In 977 BC, during his campaign against Chu, King Zhao of Zhou's boat sank and he drowned in the Han River. After this death, Zhou ceased to expand to the south, allowing the southern tribes and Chu to cement their own autonomy much earlier than the states to the north. The Chu viscount Xiong Qu overthrew E in 863 BC but subsequently made its capital Ezhou one of his capitals. In either 703 or 706, the ruler Xiong Tong became the ruler of Chu.

Under the reign of King Zhuang, Chu reached the height of its power and its ruler was considered one of the five Hegemons of the era. After a number of battles with neighboring states, sometime between 695 and 689 BC, the Chu capital moved south-east from Danyang to Ying. Chu first consolidated its power by absorbing other states in its original area (modern Hubei), then it expanded into the north towards the North China Plain. In the summer of 648 BC, the State of Huang was annexed by the state of Chu.

The threat from Chu resulted in multiple northern alliances under the leadership of Jin. These alliances kept Chu in check, and the Chu kingdom lost their first major battle at the Chengpu in 632 BC. During the 6th century BC, Jin and Chu fought numerous battles over the hegemony of central plain. In 597 BC, Jin was defeated by Chu in the battle of Bi, causing Jin's temporary inability to counter Chu's expansion. Chu strategically used the state of Zheng as its representative in the central plain area, through the means of intimidation and threats, Chu forced Zheng to ally with itself. On the other hand, Jin had to balance out Chu's influence by repeatedly allying with Lu, Wey, and Song. The tension between Chu and Jin did not loosen until the year of 579 BC when a truce was signed between the two states.

At the beginning of the sixth century BC, Jin strengthened the state of Wu near the Yangtze delta to act as a counterweight against Chu. Wu defeated Qi and then invaded Chu in 506 BC. Following the Battle of Boju, it occupied Chu's capital at Ying, forcing King Zhao to flee to his allies in Yun and "Sui". King Zhao eventually returned to Ying but, after another attack from Wu in 504 BC, he temporarily moved the capital into the territory of the former state of Ruo. Chu began to strengthen Yue in modern Zhejiang to serve as allies against Wu. Yue was initially subjugated by King Fuchai of Wu until he released their king Goujian, who took revenge for his former captivity by crushing and completely annexing Wu.

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