Zhongyong () was the second ruler of the ancient Chinese
State of Wu according to traditional Chinese history.
His
ancestral name
In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...
was
Ji (姬), given name was Yong, and Zhong refers to his rank as the second son of
King Tai of
Zhou. According to traditional Chinese history, the youngest son of King Tai
Jili was so renowned for his wisdom that Zhongyong and his elder brother
Taibo voluntarily renounced their claims to the throne of Zhou and left instead to found the
state of Wu near the mouth of the
Yangtze
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...
.
They settled at
Meili and improved the agriculture and irrigation systems of the local tribes. Taibo became the first king of Wu, but he left no children and was succeeded by his brother Zhongyong. The future
kings of Wu were his descendants.
Sima Qian
Sima Qian () was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the ''Shiji'' (sometimes translated into English as ''Records of the Grand Historian''), a general history of China cov ...
. ''Records of the Grand Historian
The ''Shiji'', also known as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' or ''The Grand Scribe's Records'', is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st ce ...
''.
References
Monarchs of Wu (state)
12th-century BC Chinese monarchs
Shang dynasty people
Burials in Suzhou
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