The Marquis of Shen (Chinese: ;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

: ''Shēnhóu''; d. 771 BCE) was a Qiang ruler of the

ancient Chinese state Ancient Chinese states () were dynastic polities of China within and without the Zhou cultural sphere prior to Qin's wars of unification. They ranged in size from large estates, to city-states to much vaster territories with multiple populatio ...

of Shen (also known as "West Shen", not to be confused with another Shen state near modern-day Nanyang,

Henan Province Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Luo ...

also known as "South Shen") during

ancient China The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Y ...

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military ...

. An important

vassal state A vassal state is any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire, in a status similar to that of a vassal in the feudal system in medieval Europe. Vassal states were common among the empires of the Near East, dating back to ...

responsible for guarding the western

Guanzhong Guanzhong (, formerly romanization of Chinese, romanised as Kwanchung) region, also known as the Guanzhong Basin, Wei River Basin, or uncommonly as the Shaanzhong region, is a historical region of China corresponding to the crescentic graben str ...

region against Xirong incursions, the Shen state roughly covered the area of modern-day Mei County in Shanxi Province. One of the Marquis of Shen's daughters was married to King You as his queen, and gave birth to

Crown Prince A crown prince or hereditary prince is the heir apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The female form of the title, crown princess, is held by a woman who is heir apparent or is married to the heir apparent. ''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 Marquis of Shen allied with the Zeng state and the

Quanrong The Quanrong () or Dog Rong were an ethnic group, classified by the ancient Chinese as " Qiang", active in the northwestern part of China during and after the Zhou dynasty (1046–221 BCE). Their language or languages are considered to have been ...

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 Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

), and the capital Haojing was sacked by the Quanrong. Thereafter, the Marquises of Shen, Zeng and Xu enthroned Yijiu as King Ping of Zhou, and the Zhou court was relocated east to

Luoyi Luoyang ( zh, s=洛阳, t=洛陽, p=Luòyáng) is a city located in the confluence area of the Luo River and the Yellow River in the west of Henan province, China. Governed as a prefecture-level city, it borders the provincial capital of Zhengz ...

. This marked the end of the

Western Zhou The Western Zhou ( zh, c=西周, p=Xīzhōu; 771 BC) was a period of Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Zhou dynasty. It began when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty at the Battle of Muye and ended in 77 ...

and the beginning of the

Eastern Zhou The Eastern Zhou (256 BCE) is a period in Chinese history comprising the latter two-thirds of the Zhou dynasty. The period follows the Western Zhou era and is named due to the Zhou royal court relocating the capital eastward from Fenghao ...

.Chinese Text Project
Rulers of the Zhou states – with links to their occurrences in pre-Qin and Han texts. During the early reign of King Ping, the Marquis 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 Western Guo () was a vassal state in China during the Zhou dynasty. "Guo" was a kinship group that held at least five pieces of territory within the Zhou realm at various times. After King Wu of Zhou destroyed the Shang dynasty in 1046 BCE, hi ...

, to instate a rival king, who remained in opposition until 750 BCE. Despite the Marquis' early prominence during the Eastern Zhou dynasty, other vassal states no longer respected the authority of the weakened Zhou monarchy, and after the Marquis' 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 the Quanrong occupation.

References

Zhou dynasty people 770s BC deaths Year of birth unknown 8th-century BC Chinese monarchs {{China-royal-stub