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Marquess of Shen (King Ping's grandfather)

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Marquess of Shen
申侯
Died771 BCE
IssueQueen Shen

The Marquess of Shen (Chinese: 申侯, p Shēnhóu; d. 771 BCE) was a Qiang ruler of the ancient Chinese state of Shen (also known as "West Shen", not to be confused with another Shen state near modern-day Nanyang, Henan also known as "South Shen") during Ancient China's Zhou dynasty. An important vassal state responsible for guarding the western Guanzhong region against Xirong incursions, Shen state roughly covered the area of modern-day Mei County in Shanxi province.

One of the Marquess of Shen's daughters was married to King You as his queen, and gave birth to Crown Prince Yijiu, but another consort named Bao Si gained the favor of the king, who wanted to depose Queen Shen and Crown Prince Yijiu in favor of Bao Si's son Bofu. Furious, the Marquess of Shen allied with the Zeng state and Quanrong barbarians to attack the Zhou capital Haojing in 771 BCE. King You was defeated and killed at the foot of Mount Li (near modern-day Xi'an), and the capital Haojing was sacked by Quanrong. Thereafter, the Marquesses of Shen, Zeng and Xu enthroned Yijiu as King Ping of Zhou, and the Zhou court was relocated east to Luoyi. This marked the end of the Western Zhou and the beginning of the Eastern Zhou dynasty.

During the early reign of King Ping, the Marquess of Shen dominated the politics of the Zhou court with his grandson as the puppet ruler. This led to his political enemies, especially the Duke of Western Guo, to instate a rival king, who remained in opposition until 750 BCE. Despite the Marquess' early prominence during the Eastern Zhou dynasty, other vassal states no longer respected the authority of the weakened Zhou monarchy, and after the Marquess' death the Shen state was later conquered by the newly-risen state of Qin, whose first duke was previously promised by King Ping himself the land ownership of Guanzhong as much as the Qin state could recapture from Quanrong occupation.

References

  1. Sima Qian. Records of the Grand Historian, "Zhou Dynasty Annals".
  2. Bamboo Annals
  3. Chinese Text Project, Rulers of the Zhou states – with links to their occurrences in pre-Qin and Han texts.
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