King Jie (; traditionally 1728–1675 BC) was the 17th and last ruler of the

Xia dynasty The Xia dynasty () is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese historiography. According to tradition, the Xia dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great, after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors, gave the throne to him. In tradit ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. He is traditionally regarded as a

tyrant A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to ...

and oppressor who brought about the collapse of a dynasty.劉煒/著. 002(2002) Chinese civilization in a new light 中華文明傳真#1 原始社會：東方的曙光. Publishing Company. . pg 150. Around 1600 BC, Jie was defeated by Tang of Shang, bringing an end to the Xia Dynasty that lasted about 500 years, and a rise to the new

Shang Dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty a ...

.王恆偉. (2005) (2006) 中國歷史講堂 #1 遠古至春秋. 中華書局. . p 26.

Etymology

''Jié'' ( variant: ) (<

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 12 ...

: ) ( ZS) means "outstanding" and later "hero"; insides Chinese, it is cognate to ''qiè'' (< OC ) (ZS) "martial"; outsides Chinese it is cognate to either "strength; champion, athlete", or

Mizo Mizo may refer to: *Mizo people, an ethnic group native to north-eastern India, western Myanmar (Burma) and eastern Bangladesh * Mizo language, a language spoken by the Mizo people *Mizoram, a state in Northeast India *Lusei people, an ethnic group ...

: "brave, resolute". The rime dictionary ''

Guangyun The ''Guangyun'' (''Kuang-yun''; ) is a Chinese rime dictionary that was compiled from 1007 to 1008 under the patronage of Emperor Zhenzong of Song. Its full name was ''Dà Sòng chóngxiū guǎngyùn'' (, literally "Great Song revised and ex ...

'' later associates this Xia king's name (or epithet) ''Jié'' with ''zhé'' "to dismember, to cut asunder". ''

Kangxi dictionary The ''Kangxi Dictionary'' ( (Compendium of standard characters from the Kangxi period), published in 1716, was the most authoritative dictionary of Chinese characters from the 18th century through the early 20th. The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing ...

'' states that 磔 (''zhé'') is synonymous with ''pìgū'' "to cut asunder and open up", in ''

Rites of Zhou The ''Rites of Zhou'' (), originally known as "Officers of Zhou" () is a work on bureaucracy and organizational theory. It was renamed by Liu Xin to differentiate it from a chapter in the '' Book of History'' by the same name. To replace a lost ...

''; and that "the ancients asserted that the fierce and devious ( ''jiéxiá'') ones are brutal and violent ( ''xiōngbào''), as if they were cutting hingsasunder ( ''zhé'')." Historian Pei Yin ( , 裴骃) cites ''Rules for Posthumous Names'' ( ''Shìfǎ'') (attributed to the

Duke of Zhou Dan, Duke Wen of Zhou (), commonly known as the Duke of Zhou (), was a member of the royal family of the early Zhou dynasty who played a major role in consolidating the kingdom established by his elder brother King Wu. He was renowned for actin ...

), that ''Jié'' was meant for those who harmed and killed numerous people.

Early years

Jie is generally known as Xia Jie (夏桀) or Jie of Xia. His given name was Lü Gui (履癸).王恆偉. (2005) (2006) 中國歷史講堂 #1 遠古至春秋. 中華書局. . p. 27. Jie ascended to the throne in the year of ''

Renchen Renchen ( gsw, label= Low Alemannic, Renche) is a small town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, part of the district of Ortenau. Geography Renchen is located in the foothills of the northern Black Forest at the entrance to the Rench valley at the edg ...

'' (壬辰).Bamboo annals Xia chapter on Xia Jie under the name Gui (癸).Virginia.edu.
Virginia.edu contents of Bamboo annal
" ''Xia chapter.'' Retrieved on 2010-10-03. Initially, his capital was in Zhenxun. He lived there for three years and constructed his tilt palace. About the same time, he destroyed the

pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilate ...

of Rong (容台), and quelled a rebellion by the Quanyi people (aka ''Fei Barbarians'') after they entered Qi, near Fen. His parents were

Fa of Xia Fa (Chinese: 發, Fā) was the 16th ruler of the Xia Dynasty, father of the infamous Jie who brought the dynasty to its end. His given name was Houjing (后敬). Reign Fa was a son of the King Gao of Xia and thus a grandson of Kong Jia. Du ...

and his wife. 夏桀像

King of Xia

Ruling

Jie is known to have lived a lavish lifestyle with slaves and treated his people with extreme cruelty. His style of ruling was reckless and filled with sex, luxury and entertainment. He generally disliked people who criticized him, and many were indeed afraid of him.戴逸, 龔書鐸. 002(2003) 中國通史. 史前夏商西周. Intelligence press. . p 51. In the sixth year of Jie's regime, he entertained envoys from vassals and neighbors. He received an envoy from the Qizhong barbarian people (歧踵戎). In the 11th year, he summoned all his vassals to his court. The Youmin Kingdom (有緡) did not come, so Jie attacked and conquered it. In his 13th year of the ruling, he moved his capital from Zhenxun to 'South of the He' (河南). About that time, he began using the Nian (輦), or sedan chair, on which he was carried by servants. The next year, he led an army to

Minshan Min Mountains or Minshan () are a mountain range in central China. It runs in the general north-south direction through northern Sichuan (the eastern part of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and adjacent areas of Mianyang Prefect ...

. There, he found two of the King of Minshan's daughters, Wan and Yan. They were unmarried and very beautiful, so he took them as his wives, renaming them Zhao (''苕'') and Hua. He abandoned his original wife Mo Xi (''妹喜'') and built a pyramid on top of the Tilt

Palace A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...

for them to live in.

Alcohol lake

According to Liu Xiang's book '' Lienü zhuan'' written much later, around 18 BC, Jie was corrupted by his infatuation with his concubine Mo Xi (妺喜 or ''末喜''), who was beautiful, but completely lacking in

virtue Virtue ( la, virtus) is morality, moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is Value (ethics), valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that sh ...

.Virginia.edu.
Virginia.edu
." ''etext scan.'' Retrieved on 2010-10-03. Lienü zhuan (列女傳) scroll 7 chapter on Jie of Xia with Mo Xi Among other things, she liked to drink, enjoyed

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

, and also had a penchant for jugglers and sing-song girls. Apparently, she had Jie order a lake of

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented grapes. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different ...

made. They both sailed about in the alcohol lake in an orgy of drunken naked men and women bathing and drinking.S.J Marshall. 002(2002) The Mandate of Heaven: Hidden History in the I Ching. Columbia university press. , . p 177-178. She then commanded 3,000 men to drink the lake dry, only to laugh when they all drowned. This event was also recorded in Han Ying's book '' Han shi waizhuan''.

Jie's cuisine

A great deal of effort was spent on Jie's cuisine and his requirements. Vegetables had to come from the northwest,

fish Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...

had to be from the East Sea, seasonings and sauces had to come from

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is a herbaceous perennial which grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of ...

that grew in the south, sea salt had to come from the north. Several hundred people were employed just to supply Jie with his meals. Anyone that got his meal wrong was

beheaded Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the au ...

. Jie was also a known alcoholic, but he did not drink regular wine. He drank a type of pure alcohol wine (清醇). The people working for him who could not supply this drink were killed. Many people died because of this. And while he was drinking wine it was required that he ride on someone's back like a

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

. In one incident Jie was riding the back of a top

chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

like a horse. After a while the chancellor was tired to the point that he could no longer crawl or move. He asked Emperor Jie to spare him. Jie immediately dragged him out to be executed. Another chancellor, Guan Longfeng (關龍逢), told the emperor that he was losing the trust of his people along with the Xia dynasty's

rivers and mountains A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

(江山). After yelling at Guan, he too was dragged out to be killed.

Collapse of the Xia Dynasty

The rise of Shang

The Xia Dynasty held

suzerainty Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is ca ...

over a number of kingdoms, one of which was the Kingdom of Shang. During Jie's reign, Shang grew in power, initially at the expense of Xia's other vassals. A person by the name of Zi Lü was able to win many supporters from as many as 40 smaller kingdoms.王恆偉. (2005) (2006) 中國歷史講堂 #1 遠古至春秋. 中華書局. . p 30. Tang of Shang recognized that Jie mistreated the people and used this as a way to convince other supporters. In one speech Tang of Shang said that creating chaos is not something he wanted, but given the terror of Jie, he has to follow the Mandate of Heaven and use this opportunity to overthrow Xia. He also pointed out that even Jie's own military generals would not obey his orders. In the 15th year of Jie's reign, Tang of Shang began moving Lü (履) to the capital Bo. About two years later Shang sent his minister Yi Yin as an envoy to Jie. Yi remained in the Xia capital for about three years, before returning to Shang. The Shang's power continued to grow. In the 26th year of Jie's reign, Shang conquered Wen. Two years later, Shang was attacked by Kunwu (昆吾), and several years of war between Shang and Kunwu followed.高明士, 国真梁.

007 The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

(2007). 中國通史. 五南圖書出版股份有限公司. , 9789571143125. p46. Despite this setback, Shang continued to expand on a number of fronts, gathering vassal troops in Jingbo (景亳). The Shang army and allied forces conquered Mixu (密須) (today's 密縣),

Wei Wei or WEI may refer to: States * Wey (state) (衛, 1040–209 BC), Wei in pinyin, but spelled Wey to distinguish from the bigger Wei of the Warring States * Wei (state) (魏, 403–225 BC), one of the seven major states of the Warring States per ...

, and attacked Gu (顧), which was also conquered the following year. Around the same time Zhong Gu, chief historian of Jie, fled from the Xia to the Shang.

Natural disasters

As Jie's reign went on, the histories record unusual and increasingly dire natural

phenomena A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried ...

. These began in the 10th year of Jie's reign, when five stars were seen in the sky in alignment and a

meteor shower A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extr ...

occurred, followed by an

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

. In the 29th year of Jie's reign he tried to dig a water-tunnel through the Qu mountain, but the next year the mountain collapsed with a

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of environmen ...

. There was also a disaster at Linsui (聆隧) in the winter. Records from the later

Qin Dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ; zh, c=秦朝, p=Qín cháo, w=), or Ch'in dynasty in Wade–Giles romanization ( zh, c=, p=, w=Ch'in ch'ao), was the first dynasty of Imperial China. Named for its heartland in Qin state (modern Gansu and Shaanxi), ...

say that during the last year of Jie's reign, ice formed during the summer mornings and frost occurred through July. Heavy rainfall toppled buildings, hot and cold weather arrived in disorder, and crops failed. Some scientists correlate this event with a

volcanic winter A volcanic winter is a reduction in global temperatures caused by volcanic ash and droplets of sulfuric acid and water obscuring the Sun and raising Earth's albedo (increasing the reflection of solar radiation) after a large, particularly explosiv ...

, possibly due to the

Minoan eruption The Minoan eruption was a catastrophic volcanic eruption that devastated the Aegean island of Thera (also called Santorini) circa 1600 BCE. It destroyed the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as communities and agricultural areas on ne ...

of Thera at around 1600 BC.

Battle of Mingtiao

In the 32nd year of Jie's reign, Tang of Shang dispatched troops from Er (陑) to simultaneously attack Xia and Kunwu. Kunwu was quickly defeated. By this time, the Xia were getting weaker near the

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...

while the Shang were becoming stronger. The Jie's forces fought with the Shang forces at

Mingtiao Xia County or Xiaxian () is a county in the southwest of Shanxi province, People's Republic of China, bordering Henan province to the southeast. It is under the jurisdiction of Yuncheng City. History In ancient China, it served as the previous c ...

in a heavy thunder storm and were defeated. Jie himself escaped and fled to Sanzong. The Shang forces, under their general Wuzi (戊子), pursued Jie to Cheng, captured him at Jiaomen and deposed him, bringing the Xia dynasty to an end. Eventually, Jie was released in Nanchao. Jie eventually died of illness. Tang of Shang succeeded as king by Tang, who inaugurated the

Family

King Jie had a wife named Mo Xi (妹喜) who was blamed for the fall of the Xia Dynasty, but he later abandoned her for the King of Minshan's daughters Wan and Yan whom Jie renamed Zhao and Hua. King Jie had no known children with his wives. It is alleged that Chunwei, the possible ancestor of the

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 20 ...

ruling elite, was his son.Sima Zhen. ''Suoyin''
chapter 24
/ref>

References

{{Kings of Xia Xia dynasty kings