Duke Huai of Jin
ruler of the state of Jin

Duke Huai of Jin, personal name Ji Yu, was briefly the duke of the Jin state in 637 BC.
Life
Yu's father was the future Duke Hui of Jin, who married a princess of Liang during his exile there. Ji became known as Crown Prince Yu when his father assumed the duchy of Jin. In 643 BC, Prince Yu was sent to the State of Qin as a hostage, where he married Princess Huai Ying (懷嬴), a daughter of Duke Mu of Qin, the powerful ruler of Qin at the time. In 641 BC, Qin conquered and annexed Liang.
In 638 BC, Duke Hui of Jin became ill. As Prince Yu was a hostage in Qin and his mother's state had been destroyed, he was worried that Duke Hui might replace him as crown prince with one of his other sons. He decided to escape back to Jin. Huai Ying refused to escape with him but agreed not to reveal his plan.
Duke Hui died in the ninth month of 637 BC, and Prince Yu ascended the throne, to be known as Duke Huai of Jin. Duke Mu of Qin, however, was angry at Prince Yu for his escape from Qin and supported Duke Hui's brother Chong'er.
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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 Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1133572. 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 Huai 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.