King Nan of Zhou
| King Nan of Zhou 周赧王 |
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| King of China | |
| Reign | 314–256 BC |
| Predecessor | King Shenjing of Zhou |
| Successor | Title officially extinct, though claimed by King Hui of Zhou |
| Died | 256 BC |
| Issue | Jī Wen Jī Zhao |
| House | Zhou dynasty |
| Father | King Shenjing of Zhou |
| King Nan of Zhou | |||||||||
| Posthumous name | |||||||||
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| Chinese | |||||||||
| Literal meaning | The Blushing King of Zhou The Ruddy King of Zhou |
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| Literal meaning | The Beclouded King of Zhou | ||||||||
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| Personal name | |||||||||
| Chinese | |||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Zhōu Nǎn Wáng |
| Wade–Giles | Chou Nan-wang King Nan of Chou |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Zhou Yin Wang |
| Wade–Giles | Chou Yin-wang King Yin of Chou |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Ji Yan |
| Wade–Giles | Chi Yen |
King Nan of Zhou (?–256 BC), born Ji Yan and less commonly known as King Yin of Zhou, was the 36th and last king of the Chinese Zhou dynasty, the son of King Shenjing of Zhou and grandson of King Xian of Zhou. He was king for fifty-nine years, longest in Zhou Dynasty and all the pre-imperial China (in terms of the reign length followed by King Mu of Zhou). By the time of King Nan's reign, the kings of Zhou had lost almost all political and military power, as even their remaining crown land was split into two states or factions, led by rival feudal lords: West Zhou, where the capital Wangcheng was located, and East Zhou, centered at Chengzhou and Kung. Therefore, Nan lacked any personal territory and was de facto subjected to the local feudal lords, essentially relying on their charity.
However, Nan's symbolic and ritual power remains disputed. On one side, the Chinese states largely ignored the king's activities and adopted royal titles and rituals for themselves, while the dynasty's fall generally received meager contemporary coverage and attention. This led to the assumption that Nan no longer had any symbolic power or semblance of royal authority left. On the other side, recent epigraphic discoveries and some accounts in the Records of the Grand Historian and Zhan Guo Ce suggest that even until his death, Nan was still respected as the Son of Heaven. Either way, the last king of Zhou managed to preserve his weakened dynasty through diplomacy and conspiracies for fifty-nine years until his deposition and death by Qin in 256 BC.
At the beginning of his reign in 314 BC, King Nan moved the capital from Chengzhou to Wangcheng. From then on, the Zhou crown lands were invaded several times by foreign powers, beginning with Qin's attack on Yiyang in West Zhou in 307 BC. Only constant political maneuvering and ever-changing alliances of the king and the feudal lords ensured the survival of West and East Zhou, even though the two Zhou states often weakened themselves by conspiring against each other. Once, Qin planned to march its troops through East and West Zhou to attack Han, so that the lords of Zhou feared to be caught in war between the two states. The Scribe Yan advised King Nan that it would be of advantage if Han would cede some territory to Zhou and Zhou send some hostages to Chu. Qin would then suspect the state of Chu to plan an attack on Qin during its campaign against Han. At the same time the king of Zhou should, as Yan suggested, explain to the king of Qin that Han suspected Zhou of conspiring with Qin because of the present of land made to Zhou. With this method the king of Zhou would increase his territory and avoid Qin troops marching through his land. On another occasion, King Nan was summoned to Qin's royal court to debate the question of attacking the Han city of Nanyang. Instead of following the request, Nan conspired with Han to block the way between Zhou and Qin in order to prevent the debate and avoid a war.
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