Xi'e ( Chinese: , p ''Xī'è'') was a region of ancient

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in present-day Henan and Hubei. Under the Qin and Han dynasties and during the Three Kingdoms period, Xi'e County ( t , s , ''Xī'èxiàn'') was also a county in the Nanyang Commandery. __NOTOC__ Regions of China

Name

Xi'e (lit. "Western E") took its name from the E, a

Shang-dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and f ...

vassal state probably originally located in modern

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

. The name is now pronounced as a brief, hard

schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English ...

(IPA: ), but the ancient pronunciation of the name has been reconstructed as closer to ''*Ngˤak''. Around the time of the Qin, therefore, "Xi'e" would have been pronounced something like ''*Snˤər Ngˤak''. By the Jin, it would have been

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...

''Ser Ngak''."Middle Chinese readings for 9000 Guangyun characters in Baxter’s notation"
pp. 30 & 133
. 2011. Accessed 14 November 2013.

History

During the Zhou, E was forced to relocate at least twice under pressure from Jin and

Chu Chu or CHU may refer to: Chinese history * Chu (state) (c. 1030 BC–223 BC), a state during the Zhou dynasty * Western Chu (206 BC–202 BC), a state founded and ruled by Xiang Yu * Chu Kingdom (Han dynasty) (201 BC–70 AD), a kingdom of the Ha ...

. Absorbed by Chu in 863 BC, E was adopted as the state's capital by a number of Chu kings prior to their final conquest by

Shi Huangdi Qin Shi Huang (, ; 259–210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. Rather than maintain the title of "king" ( ''wáng'') borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor ( ...

in 223 BC.

Ezhou Ezhou () is a prefecture-level city in eastern Hubei Province, China. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 1,079,353, of which 695,697 lived in the core Echeng District. The Ezhou - Huanggang built-up (''or metro'') area was home ...

then became a province under the Qin and Han. Thereafter, Xi'e was a county in the Nanyang Commandery during the Qin and Han dynasties and the Three Kingdoms period.

Famous residents

It was the birthplace of

Zhang Heng Zhang Heng (; AD 78–139), formerly romanized as Chang Heng, was a Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman who lived during the Han dynasty. Educated in the capital cities of Luoyang and Chang'an, he achieved success as an astronomer, ma ...

(AD 78–139), a famous Chinese

polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...

of the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

Du Xi Du Xi ( 190s–231), courtesy name Zixu, was an adviser to the warlord Cao Cao during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. He was a subordinate of Cao Cao's general Xiahou Yuan. Du Xi proposed to the troops that Zhang He take command after X ...

served as its chief () around the end of the 2nd century. Luo Xian (d. 270) was proclaimed Marquis of Xi'e () late in life as part of the creation of the Jin at the end of the Three Kingdoms period.

References

History of China Geography of China {{china-hist-stub