In the family hymns recorded in the
Classic of Poetry, the Ji family is traced from the
miraculous birth of the
Xia dynasty culture hero and court official
Houji caused by his
mother's stepping into a footprint left by the supreme god
Shangdi. The
Records of the Grand Historian instead makes Houji the son of the
Emperor Ku, connecting his family to the
Yellow Emperor who was sometimes also given the Zhou's surname.
Sima Qian goes on to record Houji's son
Buzhu abandoning court life and his fief of
Tai, apparently taking up the nomadic life of the
Rong and
Di tribes around Xia. His son
Ju continued this before
Duke Liu settled his people at a place called
Bin. The rulers of Bin were listed as
Qingjie, Huangpu (), Chaifu (), Huiyu (), Gongfei (), Gaoyu (), Yayu (), and Gongshu Zulei (). The prosperity of Bin led to attacks from hostile peoples: the
Rong,
Di, and
Xunyu (薰育 the patriarch refused to lead his people into battle but instead relocated his family to the foot of
Mount Qishan in the
Wei valley. After finding his choice confirmed by their
oracle bones, the other people who had lived in Bin left the caves and huts they had fled to and followed them, erecting a new city complete with a formal palace,
ancestral temple, and
altar. The rapid success of the new location then caused neighboring tribes of Yu and
Rui – also affiliates of the Ji ancestral temple – to join Zhou, rather than attack. (died BC). The earlier Zhou seems to be well away from the traditional locations for Bin, as well, leading scholars to posit a much longer migration west from
Shanxi. ==Posterity==