Duke Wen of Jin
22nd ruler of Jin from 636 to 628 BCE
Duke Wen of Jin (697–628 BC), personal name Ji Chong'er, was Duke of Jin from 636 to 628 BC. He was exiled from Jin for approximately 20 years before finally assuming the throne and rapidly leading Jin to hegemony over the other Chinese states of his time.
Duke Wen is a figure in numerous Chinese legends, including those about his loyal courtier Jie Zhitui, whose death is said to have inspired China's Cold Food Festival and Qingming Festival.
Names
"Duke Wen of Jin" is a posthumous name bestowed on him as part of his family's ancestral veneration. It literally means the "Cultured Duke of Jin". Duke Wen's given name was Chong'er. His clan name was Ji.
Life
Early life
Prince Chong'er was born to Duke Xian of Jin in 697 BC. The Zuo Zhuan notes that "his ribs were all grown together," a sign of strength and leadership. Chong'er's half-brothers included Shensheng and Xiqi. While Shensheng was the original crown prince, in his later years Duke Xian favoured the concubine Li Ji, who desired her son Xiqi to be heir instead. As such, she plotted to discredit Shensheng before his father, eventually leading to Shensheng's suicide in 656 BC.
Wandering
This event led to a civil war in Jin, known as the Li Ji Unrest, where Duke Xian led several campaigns against his own sons, forcing them to flee Jin.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Duke Wen of Jin” is 22nd ruler of Jin from 636 to 628 BCE. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Duke, 22nd and ruler, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q561973. VIAF identifies the subject as 75325761. The Library of Congress control number is n86006610. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Duke Wen of Jin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.