| King Nan of Zhou 周赧王 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| King of the Zhou dynasty | |||||||||
| Reign | 314–256 BC[1][2] | ||||||||
| Predecessor | King Shenjing of Zhou[2] | ||||||||
| Successor | Title officially extinct,[3] though claimed by King Hui of Zhou[4] | ||||||||
| Died | 256 BC[5] | ||||||||
| Issue | Jī Wen[3] Jī Zhao[6] | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| House | Ji | ||||||||
| Dynasty | Zhou (Eastern Zhou) | ||||||||
| Father | King Shenjing of Zhou[7] | ||||||||
| King Nan of Zhou | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Posthumous name | |||||||||
| Chinese | 周赧王 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | The Blushing King of Zhou The Ruddy King of Zhou | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Second alternative Chinese name | |||||||||
| Literal meaning | The Beclouded King of Zhou | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Personal name | |||||||||
| Chinese | 姬延 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
King Nan of Zhou (?–256 BC), personal name Ji Yan,[1] also less commonly known as King Yin of Zhou,[8] was the last king of the Zhou dynasty of China. He was the son of King Shenjing and grandson of King Xian.[8] He was king from 314 BC until his death in 256 BC, a reign of fifty-nine years,[3] the longest in the Zhou dynasty and all of pre-imperial China.[9]
By the time of King Nan's reign, the king of Zhou had lost almost all political and military power,[10] as even their remaining crown land was split into two states, led by rival feudal lords: Western Zhou state, where the capital Wangcheng was located, and Eastern Zhou state, centred at Chengzhou.[11][5][a] Therefore, King Nan lacked any personal territory and was effectively under the control of the local feudal lords, essentially relying on their charity.[10]
However, Nan's symbolic and ritual power remains disputed. On one side, the feudal states largely ignored the king's activities and adopted royal titles and rituals for themselves, while the Zhou dynasty's fall generally received meagre contemporary coverage and attention. This led to the assumption that King Nan no longer had any symbolic power or semblance of royal authority left.[10][12] On the other side, recent epigraphic discoveries and some accounts in the Records of the Grand Historian and Strategies of the Warring States suggest that until his death, King Nan was still respected as the Son of Heaven.[12] Either way, the last king of Zhou managed to preserve his weakened dynasty through diplomacy and conspiracies for fifty-nine years until his deposition by the Qin state and death in 256 BC.[13]
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