Wu Yi (), personal name Zi Qu (子瞿) was

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, queen, which title is also given to the queen consort, consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contempora ...

of the

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 ...

of ancient China from 1147 to 1112 BC. According to the ''

Bamboo Annals The ''Bamboo Annals'' (), also known as the ''Ji Tomb Annals'' (), is a chronicle of ancient China. It begins in the earliest legendary time (the age of the Yellow Emperor) and extends to 299 BC, with the later centuries focusing on the history ...

'', his capital was at Yin. He was a son of his predecessor Geng Ding and father of King Wen Ding. In the 21st year of his reign, the Zhou leader Koufu (口父) died.

Records

According to the ''

'', in the 24th year of the regime of Wu Yi, Zhou attacked Cheng (程) at Bi (毕) and defeated Bi. According to the ''

'', in the 30th year, Zhou attacked

Yiqu Yiqu (; Old Chinese (444 BCE): > Eastern Han Chinese: *,Schuessler, Axel (2014). p. 265 or ), was an ancient Chinese state which existed in the Hetao region and what is now Ningxia, eastern Gansu and northern Shaanxi during the Zhou dynasty, ...

(义渠) and captured the king of Yiqu. According to

Sima Qian Sima Qian (; ; ) was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty (206AD220). He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for his ''Records of the Grand Historian'', a general history of China covering more than two thousand years be ...

, the King of Yiqu has two sons by different mothers; after the king died, they fought each other for throne only to have Zhou defeat them both and absorb the territory of Yiqu. In the 34th year of Wǔ Yǐ's reign,

King Ji of Zhou Jili was a leader of the Predynastic Zhou during the Shang dynasty of ancient China. His son King Wen and grandson King Wu would defeat the Shang to establish the Zhou dynasty. He was posthumously granted the title of king, and often referred t ...

came to the capital to worship and was rewarded with 30 pieces of

jade Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group ...

and 10 horses. In the 35th year of Wǔ Yǐ's reign, Ji attacked the Guirong (鬼戎) at Xiluo (西落). According to

, he captured 20 kings of that tribe. In the same year, Wu Yi went hunting between the

Yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In th ...

and Wei Rivers and was killed by lightning. According to the ''

Book of Documents The ''Book of Documents'' (''Shūjīng'', earlier ''Shu King'') or ''Classic of History'', also known as the ''Shangshu'' (“Venerated Documents”), is one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature. It is a collection of rhetoric ...

'', this was blamed on Wu Yi's grave impiety. According to the

Records of the Grand Historian ''Records of the Grand Historian'', also known by its Chinese name ''Shiji'', is a monumental history of China that is the first of China's 24 dynastic histories. The ''Records'' was written in the early 1st century by the ancient Chinese his ...

,he was supposed to have carved a wooden statue(偶) of "the God of Heaven" and had one of the people to throw dice to represent it. He played

liubo ''Liubo'' () was an ancient Chinese board game played by two players. The rules have largely been lost, but it is believed that each player had six game pieces that were moved around the points of a square game board that had a distinctive, sym ...

with the idol and if the idol lost the game, he humiliated it. Another time, he filled a leather bag with

blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the cir ...

and hung it high in the air, then shot it with arrows; he called this "shooting Heaven".Religions of Ancient China Chapter I by Herbert Allen Giles

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wu Yi Shang dynasty kings 12th-century BC Chinese monarchs 1110s BC deaths