Royals › Monarch / Emperor
King Xuan of Qi
Warring States king of Qi who filled the Jixia academy with scholars, debated kingship with Mencius, and sent his army into Yan during its succession crisis
In a side chamber of a palace, a yellow ceremonial robe embroidered with a dragon hangs on a wooden stand, its hem worked with waves and rocks, before a carved folding screen, while a black lacquer chest sits on a low table by a lattice window and no person is in view.
Also known as Tian Pijiang
- Roles
- Monarch / Emperor
King Xuan of Qi, personal name Tian Bijiang, was a son of King Wei and, in the chronology corrected from the Bamboo Annals, ruled from 319 to 301 BC; pre-Qin rulers used no reign titles. The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) says he gave houses and senior rank to seventy-six scholars and persuaders, among them Zou Yan and Chunyu Kun, who debated without holding office, so that the Jixia academy flourished again. The Mencius records many of their conversations. Around 314 BC, when Yan fell into turmoil after King Kuai gave his throne to his minister Zizhi, Qi troops took the Yan capital but were driven out by Yan resistance; the Shiji assigns this war to King Min, while the Mencius and the Intrigues of the Warring States give it to King Xuan. He died in 301 BC and his son King Min followed him. The Han Feizi's story of the man who faked playing the yu in a three-hundred-piece ensemble is set at his court.
Life and times
Dates Birth unknown–301 BCE