King Mu of Zhou

Also known as Ji Man · Mu Tianzi

King Mu of Zhou, personal name Man, was the son of King Zhao; the *Records of the Grand Historian* (*Shiji*) says he was already fifty when he came to the throne. Its Zhou annals say he attacked the Quanrong against the Duke of Zhai's advice and came back with only four white wolves and four white deer, after which the outer peoples stopped attending court. He had the Marquis of Fu revise the penal laws, the text now preserved as the *Punishments of Lu* chapter of the *Book of Documents*. The Qin annals tell how his charioteer Zaofu drove him on a western tour and then raced him home when King Yan of Xu rebelled. The *Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven* (*Mu tianzi zhuan*), recovered from a Warring States tomb in the third century, has him drive his eight steeds west to feast with the Queen Mother of the West at the Jade Pool. The *Shiji* gives him a reign of fifty-five years.