King Wei of Chu

King Wei of Chu, personal name Xiong Shang, was a monarch of the Chu state, reigning from 339 BC to 329 BC. During his reign, the Chu state reached its peak in territorial size, encompassing the middle to lower stretches of the Yangtze and the basin of the Huai River.

Name

The precise nature of the Chu language is uncertain but it was probably non-Sinitic. This figure's personal name was calqued or translated into Old Chinese using the character now written 商, pronounced Shāng in Standard Mandarin and with the proposed ancient pronunciation of *S-taŋ. He belonged to the Chu royal house, the Xiong (熊, *Gʷəm, "Bear") branch of the Mi (羋) family, now conjectured to transcribe a Kam–Tai word for "bear".

He was known posthumously as the Awesome King of Chu (楚威王, Chǔ Wēiwáng or Chǔ Wēi Wáng, *S.r̥aʔ ʔujɢʷaŋ), often mistreated as a personal name in English.

Life

Shang was the son of Xiong Liangfu, known posthumously as the Xuan King of Chu. Upon his father's death in 340 or 339 BC, Shang succeeded him as king of Chu.

During his reign, Chu and Qi defeated and partitioned the state of Yue to their southeast in 334[citation needed] or 333 BC, giving Chu control over Suzhou, the Yangtze River Delta, and Wu's canal network.

Shang died in 329 BC and was succeeded by his son Huai, known posthumously as the Huai King.

In fiction and popular culture

• Portrayed by Winston Chao in The Legend of Mi Yue (2015)

Citations

Bibliography

• Baxter, William; et al. (20 February 2011), Baxter–Sagart Old Chinese Reconstruction, Paris: Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale.
• Behr, Wolfgang (19 January 2006), , 4th Conference of the European Association of Chinese Linguistics, Budapest: EACL, doi:, TTW-3.
• Brindley, Erica Fox (2015), , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Schuessler, Axel (2007), ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.