King You of Zhou

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Template:Short description Template:Infobox royalty Template:Chinese King You of Zhou (795–771 BC), personal name Ji Gongsheng, was a king of the Chinese Zhou dynasty and the last from the Western Zhou dynasty. He reigned from 781 to 771 BC.

History

In 780 BC, a major earthquake struck Guanzhong. A soothsayer named Bo Yangfu (Script error: No such module "Lang".) considered this an omen foretelling the destruction of the Zhou Dynasty.

In 779 BC, a concubine named Bao Si entered the palace and came into the King You's favour. They had a son named Bofu.[1] King You deposed Template:Ill and Crown Prince Yijiu. He made Bao Si the new queen and Bofu the new crown prince.[2]

Queen Shen's father, the Marquess of Shen, was furious at the deposition of his daughter and grandson Crown Prince Yijiu and mounted an attack on King You's palace with the Quanrong. King You called for his nobles by lighting the warning beacons on Mount Li. However, according to the Records of the Grand Historian, he had falsely lit the beacons in the past to amuse Bao Si. So his previous abuse of the beacon system meant that no nobles responded to his now genuine call for support. In the resulting battle, King You and Bofu were killed and Bao Si was captured.[3]

With the death of King You, nobles including the Marquess of Shen, the Marquess of Zeng (Script error: No such module "Lang".) and Template:Ill supported the deposed Prince Yijiu becoming King Ping of Zhou[4] and so the Zhou Dynasty was able to continue. As the national capital Haojing had suffered severe damage, and was located near the potentially dangerous Quanrong, in 771 BC, King Ping of Zhou moved the capital eastward to Luoyang, thus beginning the Eastern Zhou dynasty and ushering in the Spring and Autumn period which would last for more than 300 years.[5]

In literature

In the traditional Mao Commentary to the Classic of Poetry, the minor court hymn "Gather the Beans" (Template:Zhi) is said to be a criticism of King You for squandering feudal lords' respect and humiliating them.[6][7] Even so, this interpretation is disputed.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".

The Records of the Grand Historian states that Bao Si did not laugh easily. After trying many methods and failing, King You tried to amuse his favourite queen by lighting warning beacons and fooling his nobles into thinking that the Quanrong nomads were about to attack. The nobles arrived at the castle only to find Bao Si laughing at them for being fooled by the lit beacons. Even after King You had impressed Bao Si, he continued to misuse the warning beacons and lost the trust of the nobles.[8][9] The earliest warning beacons appeared in the Han dynasty, so this story is considered to be fabricated.[10] According to the Xinian, as recorded in the excavated Tsinghua Bamboo Slips, King You of Zhou attacked the Marquess of Shen, who allied with the Quanrong to defeat the royal army.

Family

Queens

  • Queen Shen, of the Jiang clan of Shen (Script error: No such module "Lang".), a daughter of the Marquess of Shen and the mother of Crown Prince Yijiu.

Concubines

  • Bao Si, of the Du lineage of the Qi clan of Bao (791–771 BC), a daughter of Du Bo; married in 779 BC; the mother of Crown Prince Bofu.

Sons

  • Crown Prince Yijiu (Script error: No such module "Lang".; d. 720 BC), ruled as King Ping of Zhou from 770 to 720 BC
  • Crown Prince Bofu (779–771 BC)

See also

References

Template:Reflist

Template:S-endTemplate:Kings of ZhouTemplate:Authority control
King You of Zhou
 Died: 771 BC
Regnal titles
Preceded byTemplate:S-bef/check King of China
781–771 BC Template:S-ttl/check 		Template:S-aft/check Succeeded by
  1. ↑ Revised Chinese Dictionary, Ministry of Education, Taiwan
  2. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. ↑ Cambridge History of Ancient China,1999, pages 546 and 551
  4. ↑ Bamboo Annals
  5. ↑ Phương Thi Danh (2001), Niên biểu lịch sử Trung Quốc
  6. ↑ Classic of Poetry, Minor Court-Hymns, Decade of Sang Hu, "Gather the Beans"
  7. ↑ Mao Chang (毛萇) (?) / Mao Heng (毛亨) (?), Zheng Xuan (鄭玄), Duan Yucai (段玉裁), 毛詩故訓傳定本 (Maoshi guxun zhuan dingben) "vol. 6"; p. 179 of 208, quote: (《采菽》，刺幽王也。侮慢諸侯，諸侯來朝，不能錫命以禮，數徵會之而無信義，君子見微而思古焉。)
  8. ↑ Sima Qian, Shiji, "Basic Annals of Zhou"; quote: (褒姒不好笑，幽王欲其笑萬方，故不笑。幽王為烽燧大鼓，有寇至則舉烽火。諸侯悉至，至而無寇，褒姒乃大笑。幽王說之，為數舉烽火。其後不信，諸侯益亦不至。).
  9. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". Chapter 1
  10. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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