Duke Wen of Qin
ruler of the Zhou Dynasty, Chinese state of Qin
Duke Wen of Qin (Chinese: 秦文公; pinyin: Qín Wén Gōng, died 716 BC), personal name unknown, was a duke of the state of Qin during the Eastern Zhou dynasty.
Reign
Duke Wen succeeded his father Duke Xiang of Qin, who died in 766 BC while campaigning against the Quanrong in Qishan. He moved the Qin capital back to Quanqiu (犬丘, also called Xichui, in present-day Li County, Gansu) from Qian (汧, in present-day Long County, Shaanxi), but in 762 BC moved the capital again to the confluence of the Qian and Wei rivers.
In 753 BC Duke Wen established the office of historiographer to record the official history of Qin. In 750 BC he defeated the Rong tribes that were occupying the former Zhou land. He returned the territory east of Qishan to Zhou, and kept the rest for Qin as King Ping of Zhou had promised Duke Wen's father Duke Xiang that Qin could keep the land west of Qishan if they could expel the Rong people. By repelling the Rong, the territory of Qin was greatly expanded.
Succession
Duke Wen reigned for 50 years from 765 until 716 BC. His son, the crown prince, died before him in 718 BC and was given the posthumous title Duke Jing (秦竫公). Duke Wen died in 716 BC and was succeeded by his grandson, Duke Xian of Qin.
“Duke Wen of Qin” enters the record as ruler of the Zhou Dynasty, Chinese state of Qin. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Duke, ruler and Zhou can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q552740. 1 of 1 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 Qin” 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.