| Dai | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Constituent States of the Zhou Kingdom. Dai lies in the central north area. | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 代國 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 代国 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | State of Dai | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Dai was astate which existed in northernHebei during theSpring and Autumn period ofChinese history. Itseponymous capital was located north of theZhou Kingdom in what is nowYu County. It was apparently established by the people known to theancient Chinese as theBaidi or "White Barbarians". They traded livestock and other goods betweenCentral Asia and the Zhou states prior to their conquest by theZhao clan ofJin.
Dài (pinyin) andTai (Wade-Giles) areromanizations of themodern Mandarin way of reading thecharacter代, which is usually apreposition meaning "for",[1] averb meaning "to stand for" or "represent",[2] or anoun meaning "era".[2] Its original sense inOld Chinese was "to replace",[3] but the kingdom's name was atranscription of the capital's native name;linguistic reconstruction suggests itsOld Chinese pronunciation would have been something like /*lˤək-s/.[3]
The northernRong, wiped out by Zhaoc. 460 BC, were also known as the "Dai Rong" (代戎).[4] The unofficial history compendiumLost Book of Zhou mentioned the "Dai Di" (代翟) among the northern neighbors ofShang Chinese.[5]
TheWhite Di (Baidi) were recognized as "Northern Barbarians" by the Zhou,[6][7][8] although they possessed towns and organizedstates of the Chinese model like Dai andZhongshan.[9] The White Di were first recorded living in land west of theYellow River in what is nownorthern Shaanxi.[10] They migrated east of theOrdos Loop into the valleys and mountains of northernShanxi by the 6th century BC,[11][10] creating states there which were defeated and annexed by the Zhou vassal ofJin and its successorZhao. The Di continued eastward and founded Dai and Zhongshan in the northwestern corner of theNorth China Plain in what is nowHebei.
The capital—known as Dai—was located to the northeast of present-dayYu County,Hebei, about 100 miles (160 km) west ofBeijing. Its territory included present-dayHunyuan County inShanxi.[12]
The area inhabitants acted as middlemen between nomads of theEurasian Steppe and theChinese states, supplying the latter with furs,[13]jade, andhorses.[14][9] The area's own purebred dogs[15] and horses (t 代馬,s 代马,Dài mǎ) were also well known to the Chinese.[16] Trade passed into Dai territory from the west through theDaoma Pass (t 倒馬關,s 倒马关,Dàomǎ Guān).[16]
The people of Dai were said to be "proud and stubborn, high-spirited and fond of feats of daring and evil", and to disdain practicing trade or agriculture.[13]
Chinese histories record thatZhao Yang (t 趙鞅,s 赵鞅,Zhào Yāng; 517–458 BC),posthumously known as Jianzi (t 趙簡子,s 赵简子,Zhào Jiǎnzi) ofJin'sZhao clan, became ill and was subsequently troubled over which of his sons to name as his heir.[6] He sent them toMount Chang[a] to look for achop he had placed there; onlyPrince Wuxu (t 趙毋卹,s 赵毋恤,Zhào Wúxù), his son by aDislave girl, was able to find it.[6] Wuxu was further the only son to realize that the seal had not been the real point of the father's mission.[18] The true seal of a future realm to be found on the mountain was the country of Dai which it overlooked:[18] "As the top ofChangshan overlooks Dai, so Dai could be taken".[7] Despite having bound Zhao to Dai through amarriage alliance, wedding one of his daughters to its king, Zhao Yang approved this insight and named Wuxu his successor. Wuxu would becomeposthumously known as the "Helpful" (t 趙襄子,s 赵襄子,Zhào Xiāngzǐ).[6]
Shortly after becoming head of the Zhao clan (then still part ofJin),[6] Wuxu invited his brother-in-law, the king of Dai to a feast. The king, whom theHuainanzi describes as aMohist convert,[19] came with many of the leading men of his country; Wuxu had them massacred.[20] He then swiftly invaded, overran, and annexed the lands of Dai to his realm[21] in 457 BC.[22][23][20][15][19] His sister the queen of Daikilled herself rather than live under her brother.[6] The expansive territory was given to his nephew Zhou (周,Zhōu).[6]
The Di continued to live in the area after the Zhao conquest.[24] The aftermath of the Zhao conquest is sometimes counted as the first direct contact of the Chinese states with the steppe nomads like theXiongnu[20] whose threats and invasions shaped much of Chinese history over the next 2,000 years. Later sources record that Zhao even "shared" governance of Dai with "the barbarians" in order to keep it relatively peaceful and to allow invasions against the nomadicHu, who constantly harassed the area with raids.[25]
Dai continued to be used as a name for the surrounding region, eventually becoming the namesake forDai Prefecture andDai County inShanxi.[26] The former site of ancient Dai capital inYu County,Hebei, is now preserved as "Dai King City" (代王城,Dàiwángchéng), honoring the memory of theZhao princeJia who created arump state at Dai to opposeYing Zheng ofQin in the several years beforehis successful unification of China as theQin Empire.
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