Chu (state)
Southern Chinese state (c. 1030–223 BCE) during the Zhou dynasty and Warring States Period
Chu (Chinese: 楚; pinyin: Chǔ; Wade–Giles: Ch'u, Old Chinese: *s-r̥aʔ) was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. Their first ruler was King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BC. Chu was located in the south of the Zhou heartland and lasted during the Spring and Autumn period. At the end of the Warring States period it was annexed by the Qin in 223 BC during the Qin's wars of unification.
Also known as Jing (荊) and Jingchu (荊楚), Chu included most of the present-day provinces of Hubei and Hunan, along with parts of Chongqing, Guizhou, Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. For more than 400 years, the Chu capital Danyang was located at the junction of the Dan and Xi Rivers near present-day Xichuan County, Henan, but later moved to Ying. The house of Chu originally bore the ancestral temple surname Nai (嬭 OC: /*rneːlʔ/) which was later written as Mi (芈 OC: /*meʔ/). They also bore the lineage name Yan (酓 OC: /*qlamʔ/, /*qʰɯːm/) which would later be written Xiong (熊 OC: /*ɢʷlɯm/).
History
Founding
According to legends recounted in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, the ruling family of Chu descended from the Yellow Emperor and his grandson and successor Zhuanxu. Zhuanxu's great-grandson Wuhui (吳回) was put in charge of fire by Emperor Ku and given the title Zhurong. Wuhui's son Luzhong (陸終) had six sons, all born by Caesarian section.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Chu (state)” as southern Chinese state (c. 1030–223 BCE) during the Zhou dynasty and Warring States Period. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as southern Chinese state (c. 1030–223 BCE) during the Zhou dynasty and Warring States Period. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q504759. Authority coordinates are 30.423, 112.173. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Chu (state)” 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.