King Helu of Wu

Also known as Ji Guang · He Lu · Gong Ziguang

Helu, king of Wu, personal name Guang, was known before his accession as Prince Guang; the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) makes him a son of King Zhufan. Claiming the throne under his family's brother-to-brother succession, in 515 BCE, with Wu's armies trapped in Chu territory, he had Zhuan Zhu stab King Liao at a banquet with a dagger hidden in a fish, and made himself king. He employed the Chu exiles Wu Zixu and Bo Pi, and according to the Shiji the strategist Sun Wu. In 506 he invaded Chu with Tang and Cai, crushed the Chu army at Boju and entered the capital Ying, but Qin's intervention and his brother Fugai's coup at home forced him back. Attacking Yue in 496, he was defeated at Zuili, where Ling Gufu of Yue wounded his toe with a dagger-axe, and he died at Xing on the way home. The Yuejue shu says he was buried at Tiger Hill outside Suzhou.