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Yue 越 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ?–333 BC | |||||||||
 Map of the Chinese plain in the 5th century BC. The state of Yue is located in the southeast corner. | |||||||||
| Status | Kingdom | ||||||||
| Capital | Kuaiji, laterWu | ||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||
| King | |||||||||
• 496–465 BC | Goujian | ||||||||
| Historical era | Spring and Autumn period Warring States period | ||||||||
• Established | ? | ||||||||
• Conquered byChu | 333 BC | ||||||||
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| Yue | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.svg) "Yue" inseal script (top) and modern (bottom) Chinese characters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese | 越 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Yue (Chinese:越), also known asYuyue (於越 or于越), was astate in ancient China which existed during the first millennium BC – theSpring and Autumn andWarring States periods of China'sZhou dynasty – in the modernprovinces ofZhejiang,Shanghai andJiangsu. Its original capital was Kuaiji (modernShaoxing); after its conquest ofWu, Yue relocated its court north to thecity of Wu (modern-daySuzhou). Yue was conquered byChu in 333 BC.
A specific kingdom, which had been known as the "Yue Guo" (越國) in modernZhejiang, was not mentioned until it began a series of wars against its northern neighbor Wu during the late 6th century BC. According to theRecords of the Grand Historian andDiscourses of the States, the Yue are descended from Wuyu, the son ofShao Kang, the sixth king of theXia dynasty.
With help from Wu's enemy Chu, Yue won after several decades of conflict. The famous Yue KingGoujian destroyed and annexed Wu in 473 BC. Yue then inherited Wu's good relations with Jin, and the two became allies. In 441 BC, Jin and Yue invaded Qi, whereupon Qi erected theLong Wall to prevent Yue attacks from southern Shandong.
Yue reached their apex in 404 BC, when they, along with their ally of Jin, invaded Qi and Lu. Qi and Lu made peace with Yue, with Qi ceding territory and allowing Yue to march triumphantly through the Lu capital. The Marquis of Lu drove King Yi's carriage, with the Marquis of Qi accompanying him.[1]
During the reign ofWuqiang (無彊), six generations after Goujian, Yue was partitioned by Chu andQi in 333 BC.
Yue was famous for the quality of its metalworking, particularly its swords. Examples include the extremely well-preservedSwords of Goujian andZhougou.
The Yue state appears to have been a largely indigenous political development in the lowerYangtze. This region corresponds with that of the old corded-ware Neolithic, and it continued to be one that shared a number of practices, such astooth extraction, pile building, and cliff burial.Austronesian speakers also still lived in the region down to its conquest and sinification beginning about 240 BC.[2]
What set the Yue apart from other Sinitic states of the time was their possession of a navy.[3] Yue culture was distinct in its practice of naming boats and swords.[4] A Chinese text described the Yue as a people who used boats as their carriages and oars as their horses.[5]
Theirancestral name is rendered variously as eitherSi (姒) orLuo (雒 or駱).[6][7]
| Rulers of Yue family tree | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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After the fall of Yue, the ruling family moved south to what is now northernFujian and set up theMinyue kingdom. This successor state lasted until around 150 BC, when it miscalculated an alliance with theHan dynasty.
Mingdi, Wujiang's second son, was appointed minister of Wucheng (present-dayHuzhou'sWuxing District) by the king of Chu. He was titled Marquis of Ouyang Ting, from a pavilion on thesouth side ofOuyu Mountain. The firstQin dynasty emperorQin Shi Huang abolished the title after his conquest of Chu in 223 BC, but descendants and subjects of its former rulers took up the surnamesOu,Ouyang, andOuhou (歐侯) in remembrance.
When the religious leaderXu Chang launched a rebellion against theHan dynasty in 172 CE, he declared the state of Yue restored and appointed his father Xu Sheng as "King of Yue". The rebels were crushed in 174.[8]
InChinese astronomy, there are two stars named for Yue:
ThevirusgenusYuyuevirus and the virusfamilyYueviridae are both named after the state.[13]
Possible languages spoken in the state of Yue may have been ofTai-Kadai andAustronesian origins. 126 Tai-Kadai cognates have been identified inMaqiao Wu dialect spoken in the suburbs ofShanghai out of more than a thousand lexical items surveyed.[15] According to the author, these cognates are likely traces of 'old Yue language' (古越語;Gǔyuèyǔ).[15]
