Founding 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 () was put in charge of fire by
Emperor Ku and given the title
Zhurong. Wuhui's son Luzhong () had six sons, all born by
Caesarian section. The youngest,
Jilian, adopted the ancestral surname
Mi. '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 (
zǐ, "
viscount"). Then the first capital of Chu was established at
Danyang (present-day
Xichuan in Henan).
Western Zhou 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.
Spring and Autumn period painting from the Jingmen Tomb (Chinese: 荊門楚墓; Pinyin: Jīngmén chǔ mù, about 316 BC) of the
State of Chu, depicting men wearing precursors to
Hanfu (i.e. traditional
silk dress) and riding in a two-horsed
chariot 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. The following year, Wang Jian and Meng Wu led the Qin army against
Wuyue around the mouth of the
Yangtze, capturing the descendants of the royal family of
Yue.
Qin and Han dynasties The Chu populace in areas conquered by Qin openly ignored the stringent Qin laws and governance, as recorded in the
excavated bamboo slips of a Qin administrator in Hubei. Chu aspired to overthrow the painful yoke of Qin rule and re-establish a separate state. The attitude was captured in a Chinese expression about implacable hostility: "Though Chu has but three
clans, Qin shall fall by Chu's hand" (). After Ying Zheng declared himself the First Emperor (
Shi Huangdi) and reigned briefly, the people of Chu and its former ruling house organized the first violent insurrections against the new Qin administration. They were especially resentful of the Qin
corvée; folk poems record the mournful sadness of Chu families whose men worked in the frigid north to construct the
Great Wall of China. The
Dazexiang Uprising occurred in 209 BC under the leadership of a Chu peasant,
Chen Sheng, who proclaimed himself "King of Rising Chu" (
Zhangchu). This uprising was crushed by the Qin army but it inspired a new wave of other rebellions. One of the leaders,
Jing Ju of Chu, proclaimed himself the new king of Chu. Jing Ju was defeated by another rebel force under
Xiang Liang. Xiang installed
Xiong Xin, a scion of Chu's traditional royal family, on the throne of Chu under the regnal name King Huai II. In 206 BC, after the fall of the Qin Empire,
Xiang Yu, Xiang Liang's nephew, proclaimed himself the "Hegemon-King of Western Chu" and promoted King Huai II to "Emperor Yi". He subsequently had Yi assassinated. Xiang Yu then engaged with
Liu Bang, another prominent anti-Qin rebel, in a long struggle for supremacy over the lands of the former Qin Empire, which became known as the
Chu–Han Contention. The conflict ended in victory for Liu Bang: he proclaimed the
Han dynasty and was later honored with the
temple name Gaozu, while Xiang Yu committed suicide in defeat. Liu Bang immediately enacted a more traditional and less intrusive administration than the Qin before him, made peace with the
Xiongnu through
heqin intermarriages, rewarded his allies with large fiefdoms, and allowed the population to rest from centuries of warfare. The core Chu territories centered in
Pengcheng was granted first to general
Han Xin and then to Liu Bang's brother
Liu Jiao as the
Kingdom of Chu. By the time of
Emperor Wu of Han, the southern folk culture and aesthetics were mixed with the Han-sponsored Confucian tradition and Qin-influenced central governance to create a distinct "
Chinese" culture. ==Culture==