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Historiography generally regards the death of King Jing of Zhou (476 BC) as the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, which is roughly equivalent to the "Spring and Autumn Period" compiled by Confucius. After the Spring and Autumn Period, Zhou Tianzi existed in name only, and the seven powerful vassal states of Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, and Qin (known as the Seven Heroes of the Warring States) fought for many years until Qin Shi Huang unified China in 221 BC, and people called this period the Warring States Period. Chu belongs to one of the Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period, King Chu Hui's reign spanned the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and was the first monarch of Chu in the Warring States Period, and the last king of Chu was Changping Jun in the Warring States Period, and there were 14 monarchs in Chu during the Warring States Period.
30, Chu Hui Wang Xiongzhang (reign time: 489 BC-432 BC, a total of 57 years)
"Mozi" is the king of Chu Xianhui, the son of King Zhao of Chu, married Zhao Nu as a concubine, and gave birth to a son Xiongzhong. King Hui was not yet 10 years old when he ascended the throne, but under the influence of his father King Zhao and three uncles (Zixi, Ziji, and Zilu), he developed a kind, easy-going, steady, generous and benevolent character from an early age, and was supported by his subjects. During the reign of King Chu Hui, Zixi, Zi Period, Zilu and others were reused to pacify the rebellion of Bai Gongsheng, stabilize the domestic situation, reform politics, rest with the people, develop production, enhance national strength, and prosper culture, the world-famous Zeng Hou Yi chimes were made in the period of King Chu Hui, and this set of bells was unearthed in 1978 in Suizhou, Hubei Province. Taking advantage of the fierce internal struggles in various countries in the late Spring and Autumn Period, the Chu State actively expanded its power and territory to the east, launched a series of foreign wars, successively destroyed the regimes of the Chen State, the Cai State, and the Qi State, and extended the territory of the Chu State to the East China Sea, Huaihai Sea, and Surabaya, which greatly improved the strength of the Chu State. King Chu Hui is worthy of being one of the kings of the Chu State during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and like his father King Zhao, he has made great contributions to the revival and strength of the Chu State.
31, Chu Jian Wang Xiongzhong (reign: 432-408 BC, a total of 24 years)
The son of King Chu Hui, he married Li Nu as a concubine and gave birth to a son Xiongdang. In the early years of his reign, King Chu Jian led his troops to the Northern Expedition to destroy the Ju State (now Ju County, Shandong), with Ju as the county. Subsequently, the rise of Wei in the north, so the Chu state stopped its strategic offensive in the northeast direction and strengthened its strategic defense in the north. In order to save the Song Dynasty, the state of Chu fought with Jin and Wei three times, and also fought jointly with the state of Qi and Qin, but they could not win and returned in vain. At this time, the nobles of Chu State wore swords, and after their deaths, they were also buried with bronze swords or steel swords, and many of them were as high as more than 30 pieces, which can be seen from the development and progress of metal smelting and casting technology in Chu at that time.
32, Chu Sheng Wang Xiongdang (reign time: 408 BC-402 BC, a total of 6 years)
The son of King Chu Jian, he married a concubine and gave birth to a son. During the reign of King Sheng, Wei, Zhao, and Han divided the Jin State, the Qi Guotian clan was in civil strife, and the Qin State also began to reform. Like his father, King Sheng was incompetent and reckless, which caused social turmoil and national affairs in Chu, which led to widespread resentment and rebellion, and Chu fell into a very embarrassing situation. In 402 BCE, King Chu Sheng was killed by "thieves" (assassins). After King Chu Sheng was killed, his son Xiong and the prince competed for the throne, and finally Xiong (Xiong Sus) won, mourning the king of Chu.
33, Chu mourning Wang Xiong Su (reign time: 402 BC-381 BC, a total of 21 years)
Xiong is suspected of being a bear again, the son of King Chusheng, married a concubine and gave birth to Xiong Zang and Xiong Liangfu. King Chu Mourning was a very ambitious person who was not willing to be left behind, a meritocracy and a brave Ming monarch, and an important figure in the re-emergence of the Chu State. In order to get rid of the passive position, he successively attacked Zhou and Han to alleviate the contradictions with Zheng and made a series of efforts.
During the reign of King Mourning, Wu Qi was decisively appointed as Ling Yin, and he made bold changes, reduced and restricted the privileges of the great nobles, reformed the rule of officials and the military system, developed remote areas, rewarded ploughing and warfare, enriched the country and strengthened the army, leveled Baiyue, and Chen Cai, but the three Jins, the western expedition to Qin, and the territory of Chu expanded to the border between Hunan and Guangxi, and achieved great results in about 8 years of reform, making the Chu State of the poor country and weak soldiers strong again. At the critical moment when the Chu State continued to receive good news and achieved a decisive victory, the King of Chu Mourning suddenly died of illness, and those old nobles who opposed the change were in front of the body of the King of Chu Mourning, and shot Wu Qi with arrows and dismembered the body, and even the body of the King of Chu Mourning was also shot, which made the Chu State give up halfway and not complete enough. Wu Qi's reform was originally earlier than the Qin State Shang Ying's reform, and if King Chu Mourning had lived a few more years, then history might have been rewritten.
34, Xiong Zang, King of Chusu (reigned 381-370 BC, a total of 11 years)
The son of the king of Chu Mourning. After the king of Chu Su ascended the throne, he first followed the laws of the state of Chu to wipe out more than 70 old nobles who touched the body of the king of Chu with weapons, and all of them were executed and convicted of the three clans. During his 11-year reign, the greatest difficulty faced by King Su was the lack of time-tested virtuous generals. Therefore, he did not continue to adhere to the reform line of the former king and Wu Qi to change the law internally, and externally he could only endure passive beatings again and again, and lost some cities in the border conflicts. Of course, the king of Chusu adopted the strategy of prudent self-preservation, suspension of troops and resting the people, and killed the old ministers of the rebellious party who betrayed the reform line of the previous king, which stabilized the domestic situation, although there was no great achievement, but it also laid a certain foundation for the recovery and revitalization of the later period of the two kings of Xuan and Wei. After the death of King Chusu, because he had no children, his younger brother Xiong Liangfu inherited the throne and was the king of Chu Xuan.
35, Xiong Liangfu, King of Chu Xuan (reigned 370-340 BC, a total of 30 years)
The son of King Chu Mourning and the younger brother of King Chu Su, he married Zhao Nu as a concubine and gave birth to a son Xiong Shang. After King Chu Xuan ascended the throne, at a time when various countries were competing for reform, the annexation war was very fierce, and the situation became more complicated. King Xuan was a very accomplished king in the history of the Chu State, not only politically astute and judging the situation, but also ambitious and good at making good use of virtuous ministers. He practiced a strategy of "resting Chu", that is, making full use of the contradictions between Wei and Qi and Qin, avoiding head-on conflicts with them, resting with the people, and maintaining strength, so that the state of Chu quickly came out of the shadow of the failure of Wu's reform. At the same time, he also appointed people of insight such as Zhao Xixian and Jingshe to actively open up the territory in the north and west and vigorously develop the domestic economy. Because of the gentlemen, ministers, and virtuous, and united heart, the state of Chu ushered in a good situation of revitalization and rejuvenation in the complex predicament at home and abroad. By the time King Xuan died, the state of Chu had accumulated a very strong strength, laying a solid foundation for the revitalization of his successors. By the time of his son, King Chu Wei, the state of Chu had reached its peak in power.
36. Xiong Shang, King of Chuwei (reigned 340-329 BC, a total of 11 years)
The son of King Xuan of Chu, he married Xiao Nu as a concubine and gave birth to sons Xiong Huai and Xiong Yang. During the reign of King Chu Wei, the state of Chu had amassed enough strength to compete with any powerful enemy, while the other great powers encountered various difficulties from within and from without. He appointed Zhaoyang Jun and other virtuous ministers, inherited his father Chu Xuan Wang to save Zhao Fa Wei and open up the pattern of Bashu, was the Warring States Period Chu State since the mourning of the king of the country to build the most powerful king, he spent his life to restore the hegemony of the Chu Zhuang King era as the ambition, and tried to make the Chu State crown the first of all countries.
King Wei adopted the strategy of Zhaoyang Jun, sent troops to fight with the Yue State, annihilated the Yue State more than 100,000 troops in one fell swoop, the main force of the Yue State was destroyed by the Chu State, the Yue King committed suicide, and the land of the Yue State was all returned to the Chu State, and later the King of Chu Wei defeated the Qi army in Surabaya, and successively destroyed nearly 100 small countries, the territory of the Chu State has been unprecedentedly expanded, the economy and military reached its peak, becoming the first country in the East at that time, the second largest country in the world (the territory is second only to the Alexander Empire in the West). In the heyday of the Chu State, it occupied most of the whole of China, the south of the Huai River in the Qinling Mountains belonged to the Chu State, and the north of the Huai River in the Qinling Mountains was divided by dozens of other countries. King Chu Wei and his father King Xuan ruled for 40 years, worked hard to make the country prosperous, and jointly created the famous "Xuanwei Prosperous Era" in the history of Chu State.
37, Xiong Huai, King of Chu Huai (reign time: 329 BC-299 BC, a total of 30 years)
The son of King Chuwei, he married a concubine and gave birth to sons Xiong Heng and Xiong Lan (Zilan). When King Huai of Chu ascended the throne, the state of Chu was the strongest of the seven heroes, with strong national strength, and it should have been the best time for development. King Huai had a certain vision in the early days, and he made great efforts to govern the country, he made an exception to appoint Qu Yuan and others to carry out reform of the law, defeated the Wei State, eliminated the Yue State, expanded the territory, and had a great influence. It is a pity that in the later period of King Huai, there was no distinction between loyalty and treachery, and his wisdom was short-sighted, and Qu Yuan was alienated from his post, and he reused his ministers, stubborn, made repeated mistakes in decision-making, and repeatedly fell into the treacherous tricks of Qin Prime Minister Zhang Yi, and was defeated by the Qin army several times, and the generals Qu Kuo, Tang Wu, Jing Que, etc. were killed or captured, and lost a large area of land and more than 100,000 troops, resulting in the country's affairs becoming increasingly difficult and the national strength declining day by day.
In 299 BC, King Huai and King Qin Zhaoxiang allied at Wuguan, and King Qin Zhaoxiang seized him and coerced him to cede his land. King Huai also took the opportunity to escape from Xianyang, intending to sneak back to Chu, but was caught by the pursuers and escorted back to Xianyang, so that he became ill and bedridden. During the three years that King Chu Huai was detained, his son Xiong Heng did not think about saving his father and set himself up as king (King Qingxiang), and the princes thought that they were harmless and did not crusade against Qin. Although King Huai of Chu was mediocre and stupid, he still had the traditional spirit of patriotism of the ancestors, and for the sake of national interests, he would rather be imprisoned in a foreign country, and also categorically refused the request of the King of Qin, refusing to cede an inch of land and mountains in his homeland, so that the Qin State could not obtain land, and the second could not attack the Chu State under the pretext of the signed alliance, and the relationship between Qin and Chu was at an impasse, and the Chu State was temporarily preserved. In 296 B.C., King Huai of Chu died in Qin, and Zi's coffin returned to Chu. ("Historical Records: The Chu Family")"
The life of King Huai of Chu was a major turning point in the state of Chu from strength to decline, because he lacked eloquence and sober mind, lacked the ability to distinguish between right and wrong and control the overall situation, and pushed a good and upright state of Chu onto the road of decay. He misled the country but was also patriotic, confused but strong-willed, and did not hesitate to sacrifice his life in order to maintain the community, so he also won the sympathy, respect and nostalgia of several generations of Chu people.
38, Xiong Heng, King of Chu Qingxiang (reign time: 299-263 BC, a total of 36 years)
The son of King Huai of Chu, he married the daughter of Qin as a concubine and gave birth to a son Xiong Yuan (also known as Xiong Wan). Xiong Heng's history of killing his father was not avenged, but he married a woman from the enemy Qin State, which made future generations indignant and criticized it many times. During the reign of King Qingxiang of Chu, the state of Chu was already in a state of decline, and he appointed Zilan as Ling Yin, excluded Zhongliang, and exiled Qu Yuan to a remote area in the south, making the government even darker. King Qingxiang was an incompetent person and lascivious, which made the national strength of Chu decline day by day and became weaker and weaker. In the spring of 278 B.C., the Qin general Bai Qi attacked Chu on a large scale, the military spirit and the people's heart of Chu have been scattered, Bai Qi took advantage of the situation to break through the capital of Chu Ying, Chu Qingxiang King and hundreds of civil and military officials fled in a hurry, crossed the Han River to the north, and was forced to move the capital to Chen County, called Chen Ying.
After the fall of the capital of Chu, Qu Yuan's political ideals were shattered, and he felt hopeless about the future, and committed suicide by throwing himself into the Miluo River on May 5 of that year. Qu Yuan is a famous politician and a great patriotic poet of the Chu State, he was born in the nobility of the Chu State, since he was a child, with the lofty ambition to revitalize the Chu State, with outstanding political and diplomatic talents, although loyal to the King of Huai but was repeatedly excluded, and then was exiled by the King of Qingxiang to listen to slander, and finally committed suicide with hatred. He founded the new poetry style "Chu Ci" represented by "Lisao", "Tianwen" and "Nine Songs", and created the romantic literary tradition of "vanilla beauty", which had a profound impact on later generations, and was later named "world cultural celebrity" and was admired, and according to legend, the Dragon Boat Festival was set up to commemorate Qu Yuan.
39, Chu Kaoli King Xiong Wan (reign time: 263-238 BC, a total of 25 years)
Xiong Wan became Xiong Yuan again, the son of King Xiang of Chu, married Li Nu and Xie Nu as concubines, and Concubine Li gave birth to sons Xiong Han and Xiong You; Concubine Xie gave birth to sons Xiong Cheng and Changping. Xiong Wan began to work as a proton in Qin in 272 BC, and in 263 BC, when his father King Chu Qingxiang was critically ill, he wanted to return to China to compete for the throne, but King Qin Zhaoxiang refused to let him go on the grounds that the situation was unknown. Later, his servant Huang Xie deceived the Qin people by stealing beams and replacing pillars, so that they fled to Chu and succeeded to the throne smoothly. In order to repay Huang Xie, after King Chu Kaolie succeeded to the throne, he appointed Huang Xie as Ling Yin, and gave the twelve counties of Huaibei to be called Chun Shenjun.
In 258 BC, Qin besieged Zhao urgently, and King Chu Kaolie ordered Chun Shenjun to lead troops to help Zhao relieve the siege of Handan, and led troops to destroy Lu State, and Chu State was revived for a time. In 241 BC, King Kaolie served as the chief of the longitudinal covenant, organized the armies of Chu, Han, Zhao, Wei, and Yan to conspire against Qin, but was defeated by the Qin army, and King Kaolie of Chu was afraid of Qin's retaliation, so at the suggestion of Huang Xie, Chunshenjun, he left Chen again and moved the capital to Shouchun (now southwest of Shou County, Anhui) further east, called Shouying. Huang Xie is extremely intelligent, has been in the official residence for 25 years, and has been loyal to King Kaoli and has made great achievements. When King Kaoli did not have a son, Chunshenjun was very worried, so he sought many young women to offer him to King Kaolie, including Li Huan, the younger sister of Chunshenjun's disciple Li Yuan.
Li Huan's appearance is like a hibiscus out of the water, Li Yuan intends to sacrifice to the king of Chu, and is worried that his sister will not give birth to children and fall out of favor, so he asked Li Huan to serve Chun Shenjun first, and then sacrifice it to King Kaolie after pregnancy, and Chun Shenjun also agreed. Later, the plan succeeded as he wished, and King Kaoli made Li Huan's son Xiong Han the crown prince, who was later the king of Chu You, and Li Yuan was also reused because of this. In 238 BC, King Kaoli died of a serious illness, Li Yuan rushed into the palace, ambushed the assassin to kill Huang Xie to extinguish the mouth, and killed Chunshenjun all over the door, and since then few people in the palace know that King Chuyou is the son of Chunshenjun Huang Xie. The killing of Chun Shenjun was not only his personal misfortune, but also the state of Chu was further decayed because of it.
40, Xiong Han, King of Chu You (reigned time: 238 BC-228 BC, a total of 10 years)
The son of King Chu Kaolie, it is said that he is the illegitimate son of Chun Shenjun. King You of Chu succeeded to the throne at a young age, and the government of Chu was controlled by Li Yuan and Li Huan's brothers and sisters. At this time, the Qin state, under the rule of Yingzheng (Qin Shi Huang), accelerated the process of eliminating the princes and unifying China, while the state of Chu was declining and passively beaten.
41, Xiong You, King of Chu Ai (reign: 228-228 BC, only two months)
The son of King Chu Kaolie, the half-brother of King Chu You. King Chu Ai reigned for just over two months before he was killed by the Negative Warrior because of his unknown origin. Negative is the cousin of King You and King Mourning, he has no right to inherit the throne, but he learned the truth about the life experience of King You of Chu, and was filled with righteous indignation, because of the great shame, he hated Li Yuan's brothers and sisters for deceiving their father, and hated that their own world had fallen into the hands of people of the opposite sex, so they raised the dead in the shadow, launched a coup d'état, and beheaded the Li family headed by the Queen Mother Li Huan and Li Yuan in one fell swoop, and then established himself as the king of Chu and became the supreme ruler of Chu.
42, King of Chu (reign time: 228-223 BC, a total of 5 years)
The son of King Chu Kaolie, he married a concubine and gave birth to a son Xiong Huai. During the reign of King Chu Chengshu, Korea, Zhao, and Wei were destroyed by Qin one after another, and Chu was repeatedly attacked by the Qin army. In 223 BC, the Qin generals Wang Jian and Meng Wu led an army of 600,000 to attack the Chu capital Shouchun, and the king of Chu was captured, and Wang Jian pacified the vast land south of the Yangtze River in Chu, and the Chu State was destroyed.
43, Changping Jun Xiong Qi (reign time: 223 BC - 223 BC, a total of 1 year)
Xiong Qi, the king of Changping (271-223 BC), was the son of King Chu Kaolie, and his mother was the daughter of King Zhaoxiang of Qin. Xiong Qi was the cousin of Qin Shi Huang and the last king of Chu. He was named the king of Changping, served in Qin for a long time, and was the king of Qin Zhuang Xiang and the minister of Qin Shi Huang. In 238 BC, he was ordered to quell the rebellion of Chang Yu with Lü Buwei and Chang Wenjun, and was appointed as Xiangbang, and was later sent to Yingchen by Qin Shi Huang to pacify the Chu people. In 225 BC, he rebelled against Qin and Yingchen, and after the battle was unfavorable, he was defeated and retreated to Huainan. In the fifth year of the reign of the king of Chu (223 BC), the Qin army captured the Chu capital Shouchun and was captured. Changping Jun was embraced as the king of Chu by the Chu general Xiang Yan (Xiang Yu's grandfather), made the capital Lanling, and continued to rebel against the Qin state in the Huainan area. Wang Jian and Meng Wu led the Qin army to attack, Changping Jun was defeated, was shot by a stray arrow and died, Xiang Yan committed suicide, so far the Chu State, which had enjoyed the country for more than 800 years, was completely destroyed.
The state of Chu was established around 1042 B.C. and fell in 223 B.C., which lasted about 820 years, of which there were more than 660 years of being listed as a big country and a powerful country, and it deserved to be one of the "Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period" and one of the "Seven Heroes of the Warring States". In the late Warring States period, several generations of kings were content with pleasure, decayed and degenerate, and did nothing until they perished. Although the state of Chu is dead, the long-term condensation of the Chu people's "blue wisps on the road", the entrepreneurial spirit of hard work, the patriotic spirit of cherishing the homeland and serving the country, the open spirit of learning from others' strengths and being used by me, and the pragmatic spirit of being down-to-earth and seeking truth from facts, are the eternal glory of the generations! The glorious Chu culture created by the Chu people has been watered for hundreds of generations and has been flowing for generations, and is a priceless treasure in the history of human culture.
Although the Qin State destroyed the Chu State, it did not conquer the Chu people. In 278 B.C., when the Qin general Bai Qi was promoted, a man named Nangong in the state of Chu said: "Although Chu has three households, the death of Qin will be Chu" ("Historical Records: Xiang Yu Benji"), and history confirms Nangong's prophecy. Qin Shi Huang unified China only two years after the Chu state was wiped out by the Qin state, but the Qin dynasty only existed for 15 years. In the great peasant uprising of the Qin Dynasty, it was the rebel army led by Chen Sheng, Xiang Yu, and Liu Bang who eliminated the Qin Dynasty.
In June 208 BC, Xiang Liang followed the advice of his advisor Fan Zeng to search for the descendants of the king of Chu, and found Xiong Xin, the grandson of the king of Chu Huai, who was shepherding sheep for the rich in the countryside, and still established himself as the king of Chu Huai, with the same nickname as his grandfather Xiong Huai, in order to inherit his prestige and set up an anti-Qin banner. In February 206 BC, after the elimination of the Qin state, Xiang Yu followed the old system, divided 18 princes, and established himself as the overlord of Western Chu, Liu Bang as the king of Hanzhong, and respected Wang Xiongxin as the righteous emperor (killed in October of the same year). Xiong Xin and Xiang Yu also became the two influential Chu kings in the post-Chu era in history. In the following four years, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu staged the "Chu and Han rivalry", to the beginning of 202 BC, Xiang Yu was defeated and killed himself, Liu Bang officially ascended the throne as the emperor and established the Han Dynasty.