Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What dynasty was King Zhaoxiang of Qin?
Reigning over 55 years, he was one of the longest-serving rulers during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Although making numerous policy mistakes during his later years, his aggressive territorial expansions were pivotal in consolidating the state of Qin as the dominant military powerhouse in the late Warring States period. It was the strategic dominance established during his reign that paved the way to Qin's eventual successful unification of China under his great-grandson, Ying Zheng.
Note: King Zhaoxiang of Qin (秦昭襄王) had already been ruling Qin for 51 years when Qin annihilated the Zhou dynasty; however the other six warring states were still independent regimes. Some Chinese historiographers thus used the next year (the 52nd year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin) as the official succession from the Zhou dynasty.
In 299 BC, Lord Mengchang was sent to Qin on an official journey. King Zhaoxiang had heard so much about the young lord that he wanted to appoint him as the new Chancellor of Qin. However, King Zhaoxiang was warned by his ministers that Lord Mengchang was still loyal to his homeland of Qi, and soon put Lord Mengchang under house arrest. Desperate, Lord Mengchang sent a messenger to the king of Qin's beloved concubine for help. In exchange for her aid, the woman asked for the snow fox fur coat which Lord Mengchang had already given to the king as a gift when he first arrived in Qin. It was worth a thousand pieces of gold and there was not its like anywhere. King Zhaoxiang kept it in the royal treasury. One of Lord Mengchang's entourage in Qin was a skilled thief. He disguised himself as a dog and sneaked into the treasury under cover of darkness and retrieved the coat. Within two days, Lord Mengchang was released thanks to the pleas of the concubine. Lord Mengchang hired a chariot, forged his documents and dashed to the borders. By midnight of the next day, he had reached Hangu Pass—the last checkpoint of Qin before entering the territories of Qi. King Zhaoxiang had immediately regretted letting Lord Mengchang go and a small army was chasing him to bring him back. The guards at Hangu Pass would not let anyone pass through until the cock-crow at dawn. Lord Mengchang turned to his entourage for help. One of his aides could imitate all types of sounds. He crowed like a rooster, and this woke up the rest of the roosters. Not knowing that Lord Mengchang was being hunted, the guards at the pass then allowed Lord Mengchang and his entourage to enter Qi territory to safety.
In 305 BC, two of King Zhaoxiang's older half-brothers, Prince Zhuang (公子壯) and Prince Yong (公子雍), who a year ago were both rival contenders for the throne, conspired to carry out a coup with Queen Huiwen (惠文后, the mother of the late King Wu) and Queen Wu (悼武王后, King Wu's childless wife, who was a princess from Wei) as well as a dozen other lords and court officials who were against King Zhaoxiang's ascension. The rebellion was quickly crushed by Wei Ran, who slaughtered all the conspirators except Queen Wu, who was exiled back to Wei. With the annihilation of the dissidents, King Zhaoxiang's hold to the throne was secured. In the same year, King Zhaoxiang had his coming-of-age ceremony, and began to personally attend state affairs.
Wang Ling's attack on Handan did not go well due to the fierce Zhao resistance, and King Zhaoxiang again decided to invite Bai Qi to command the siege, but Bai Qi again advised him that Qin had a very low chance of winning this campaign. King Zhaoxiang was unhappy to hear Bai Qi's counsel, so he replaced Wang Lin with Wang He and continued the siege. In 257 BC, the Qin army was suffering losses inflicted by reinforcements from the states of Chu and Wei. King Zhaoxiang then personally visited Bai Qi and attempted to coerce him into taking the command position with royal authority. When Bai Qi once again advised abandoning the siege, King Zhaoxiang was so angry that he stripped Bai Qi's titles and exiled him. Fan Ju then falsely accused to King Zhaoxiang that Bai Qi was cursing the King behind his back, so King Zhaoxiang decreed the forced suicide of Bai Qi. This did not improve the situation for the Qin offensive, and the Qin sustained heavy casualties under the combined assault of Wei, Chu and Zhao, and the Qin army was routed and went into a general retreat. The three-state alliance then pursued and attacked Qin, reinforced by the Han army that had recently joined them. The combined forces recaptured Hedong, Anyang, Taiyuan, Pilao, Wu'an, Shangdang and Runan. The Qin expeditionary force lost most of its men in the retreat. King Zhaoxiang's ignoring of Bai Qi's advice had sown bitter fruits at the end.
In 283 BC, King Zhaoxiang offered to trade 15 cities in exchange of the jade disc of He, which was in the state of Zhao's possession. King Huiwen of Zhao was attracted by the offer and agreed to the trade. However, the Zhao ambassador Lin Xiangru (藺相如) figured out that Qin never meant to hold up their end of the deal, and managed to return the jade back to Zhao. During the following three years (282 BC to 280 BC), Qin attacked Zhao multiple times, capturing cities such as Shicheng (石城), Lin (藺), Lishi (離石), Qi (祁) and Guanglang (光狼城), killing 20,000 men, and forcing Zhao to agree to send hostages and concede lands in exchange for returning the captured cities. During the armistice meeting held at Mianchi (澠池), King Zhaoxiang attempted to humiliate King Huiwen, but was forced to back down when Lin Xiangru threatened to physically harm the Qin king.
Bai Qi was furious at this because he believed Qin had just forfeited a chance to annihilate Zhao once and for all, and resigned his position in protest. However, Zhao soon changed its mind and refused to cede the lands it promised, and attempted to lobby an anti-Qin alliance with the other states. King Zhaoxiang then ordered an attack on Zhao in late 259 BC, laying siege to Handan. He wanted Bai Qi to lead the attack, but the still angry Bai Qi bluntly refused to assume the position citing illness. Instead, he advised King Zhaoxiang to call off the siege as the window of opportunity for an easy victory was already gone, because Lord Pingyuan had managed to secure military reinforcements from Chu and Wei, led by the famous Lord Chunshen and Lord Xinling. King Zhaoxiang did not take in his advice and instead appointed Wang Ling (王陵) as the commander of the siege.
Parents: Prince Si (公子駟; 356–311 BC), ruled as King Huiwen of Qin (秦惠文王) from 338–311 BC Queen Dowager Xuan, of the Mi clan of Chu (宣太后 羋姓; d. 265 BC) Consorts: Queen Yeyang (葉陽王后) Queen Dowager Tang, of the Tang lineage (唐太后 唐氏), the mother of Prince Zhu Issue: King Zhaoxiang's first son (d. 267 BC). He is also known by his posthumous title, Crown Prince Dao (悼太子). King Zhaoxiang's second son, Prince Zhu (公子柱; 303–251 BC), ruled as King Xiaowen of Qin (秦孝文王) in 251 BC. He is also known by his prior title, Lord Anguo (安國君). A daughter who married King Kaolie of Chu (楚考烈王) and bore Lord Changping (昌平君) in 271 BC
King Zhaoxiang reigned as the King of Qin for 57 years, and was responsible for the state of Qin achieving strategic dominance over the other six major states. During his reign, Qin captured the Chu capital Ying in 278 BC, conquered the Xirong state of Yiqu in 272 BC, slaughtered a 450,000-strong Zhao army at Changping in 260 BC, and overthrew the Eastern Zhou dynasty in 256 BC. These aggressive territorial expansions and the strategic weakening of other rival states paved the path for Qin's eventual unification of China three decades later by his great-grandson Ying Zheng.
In 307 BC, King Nan of Zhou hosted King Wu of Qin, who just returned victorious against Han at the Battle of Yiyang. During the visit, King Wu, a keen wrestler, decided to try lifting the "dragon-patterned red cauldron" (龍紋赤鼎) in the Zhou palace. He died from the attempt, bleeding from his eyes and breaking his shin bones. After the childless King Wu died, his hostage half-brother Ying Ji returned to claim the throne as King Zhaoxiang.
Bai Qi wanted to take advantage of the victory at Changping and immediately lay siege to the Zhao capital of Handan (邯鄲). This frightened the states of Zhao and Han greatly, so they sent Su Dai (蘇代, Su Qin's brother) to bribe Fan Ju (范雎, or Fan Sui 范睢), who was then the Qin chancellor and jealous of Bai Qi's military achievement. Fan Ju persuaded King Zhaoxiang to halt the offensives, citing as the reason that the soldiers needed to rest after years of war. Qin agreed to an armistice in exchange of the states of Zhao and Han conceding lands.
In 256 BC, Duke Wu of West Zhou (西周武公) allied with other states to stop the Qin offensive on the Han city of Yangcheng. In retaliation, King Zhaoxiang of Qin sent general Jiu to invade West Zhou, successfully breaking into Wangcheng. The Duke Wu was taken to Xianyang to beg for mercy, conceding all his lands. Both King Nan and Duke Wu would die later that year, and the subsequent Duke of West Zhou, Duke Wen (西周文公), was exiled to Danhuju (憚狐聚). Because the Zhou royal court had fallen from power and King Nan had died without a successor, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty collapsed, ending 879 years of Zhou monarchy. The remaining East Zhou state was also conquered by Qin chancellor Lü Buwei seven years later in 249 BC during the reign of King Zhaoxiang's grandson King Zhuangxiang, after Duke Jing of East Zhou attempted to form an anti-Qin alliance with other states.
In the middle of the 3rd century , Zheng Guo, a hydraulic engineer from the Han state, was sent to Qin to advise King Zhaoxiang of Qin on constructing irrigation canals. Qin had a penchant for building large-scale canals, as evident from its Min River irrigation system. King Zhaoxiang approved Zheng Guo's idea on constructing an even bigger canal. The project was completed in 264  and the canal was named after Zheng. Qin benefitted from the project as it became one of the most fertile states in China due to the good irrigation system, and also because it could now raise more troops as a consequence of increased agricultural yield.
In 289 BC, King Zhaoxiang sent Bai Qi and Sima Cuo to attack Wei, capturing 61 villages around Zhi. However, in 288 BC, Qin was forced to back down when the five eastern states allied together and threatened to attack Qin again. It did not take long for Qin to strike back, capturing Xinyuan (新垣) and Quyang (曲陽) from Wei in 287 BC, and the former Wei capital Anyi (安邑) in 286 BC. In 283 BC, Qin allied with Zhao and attacked Wei again, capturing Ancheng (安城) with its vanguard reaching near the Wei capital Daliang (大梁).
Due to this defeat, in 299 BC King Huai of Chu was forced to go to Wu Pass (武關) to negotiate terms with Qin, but along the way was abducted and taken to Xianyang instead. When he refused to cede the territory of the Wu Commandery (巫郡) and Qianzhong Commandery (黔中郡), he was detained as a hostage. King Zhaoxiang then proceeded to invade Chu the next year, capturing 16 cities and killing 50,000 Chu soldiers. King Huai of Chu did manage to escape in 297 BC, when Qin was distracted by a joint siege on Hangu Pass by Wei and Han, but he was recaptured when he was seeking asylum in Wei, after unsuccessfully doing so in the state of Zhao. He died a year later in captivity, and Qin finally returned his corpse back to Chu.
In the next five decades after King Huiwen's death, King Zhaoxiang of Qin shifted his attention to northern China after Qin's victories in the south against Chu. In the early years of King Zhaoxiang's reign, the Marquis of Rang (穰侯) served as Qin's chancellor and he actively pushed for military campaigns against the Qi state in the far eastern part of China. However, the marquis had his personal motives, as he intended to use Qin's powerful military to help him conquer a fief in Qi territories, since the lands were not directly linked to Qin and would not be under the Qin government's direct administration.
Jī Jié was born into the large royal Jī family that ruled China since 1046 BC, though by his time the dynasty had become effectively powerless. Their remaining crown land was embroiled in infighting and succession disputes, so that it was split into two factions, led by rival nobles: West Zhou and East Zhou. Jié, as Duke Wen, ruled over the East from Chengzhou, and largely ignored the authority of King Nan of Zhou who resided in Wangcheng and was supported by the western nobles. In 256 BC, however, war broke out between West Zhou under Nan and the state of Qin under King Zhaoxiang of Qin. Qin annexed the West, deposed King Nan and forcibly ended the Zhou dynasty. Many citizens and members of the royal family then fled to East Zhou, where they proclaimed Wen King of China in 255 BC.
In 266 BC, the Wei national Fan Ju (范雎) fled to Qin after being persecuted and tortured by the Wei chancellor, Wei Qi (魏齊), and vowed revenge upon his home state. He advised King Zhaoxiang about the strategy of "allying distant states while attacking nearby states" (遠交近攻). This advice impressed King Zhaoxiang so much that he appointed him as the chancellor of Qin. In 264 BC, King Zhaoxiang sent Bai Qi to attack Han, capturing nine cities including Xingcheng (陘城) and killing 50,000 of the enemy, enabling Qin to blockade the routes around southern Taihang Mountains. In 262 BC, Bai Qi attacked Han and captured Yewang (野王), cutting off the Shangdang region from the Han mainland. King Huanhui of Han was fearful of the Qin military prowess and decided to concede Shangdang, but the local commanders refused to do so and instead surrendered the region to the state of Zhao. The struggle for control of Shangdang triggered direct conflicts between Qin and Zhao, then the two largest military powers among the warring states, leading to the devastating Battle of Changping.
In 306 BC, the young King Zhaoxiang ascended to the throne, with his mother Queen Dowager Xuan serving as regent. Knowing Qin could not focus on eradicating Yiqu when it had the hostile eastern states to deal with, and her son's rule was still shaky due to numerous rival princes keen to capture the throne, Queen Dowager Xuan decided to use an approach of pretended conciliation. She invited the king of Yiqu to live long-term in the Ganquan Palace, and consummated a seductive liaison that produced two sons with him. This completely removed the Yiqu King's hostility towards Qin, as the beguiled king had lost all cautiousness around the Queen Dowager. At the same time, King Zhaoxiang was aggressively acting to weaken rival warring states in the east and south, and Queen Dowager Xuan was secretly planning with her son the eventual annihilation of Yiqu.
In 293 BC, the states of Han, Wei and East Zhou allied together to attack Qin. King Zhaoxiang appointed the young Bai Qi as general, and defeated the two major states at Yique, killing 240,000 of the enemy and capturing (then executing) the enemy's supreme commander Gongsun Xi (公孫喜). This was the most devastating blow Qin delivered to the two eastern states to date. In 292 BC，Bai Qi again led the army and attacked Wei, capturing Weicheng (魏城) and sacking Yuanqu (垣邑). Then in 291 BC, Qin attacked Han again and seized the city of Wan (宛城) and Ye (葉). In 290 BC，King Zhaoxiang sent Sima Cuo (司馬錯), who captured Zhi (軹) from Wei and Deng (鄧) from Han, before joining with Bai Qi to seize Yuanqu again. These successive victories forced Wei to concede 400 li of Hedong lands, and Han to concede 200 li of Wusui lands to Qin.
In 288 BC, King Zhaoxiang contacted King Min of Qi and proposed an alliance where both would claim the title "Di", and planned to attack the newly strengthened state of Zhao together. However, King Min was persuaded by Su Qin to renounce his Di title, and instead allied with other states to attack Qin, forcing King Zhaoxiang to also renounce his Di title. At the same time, Qi took the opportunity to conquer its rival state of Song, which made itself a major immediate threat in the eyes of other states.
In 304 BC, King Zhaoxiang met with King Huai of Chu in Huangqi (黃棘) to negotiate an alliance, ceding Shangyong (上庸) as a gesture. In 303 BC, the states of Qi, Wei and Han broke off their previous alliance with Chu and invaded Chu, forcing Chu to send its crown prince Xiong Heng to Qin as a hostage in exchange for Qin assistance. King Zhaoxiang sent troops to attack Wei and Han, capturing Puban (蒲阪), Yangchun (陽春) and Fengling (封陵) from Wei, and re-capturing Wusui from Han. In 302 BC, King Zhaoxiang met with King Xiang of Wei and Crown Prince Yin of Han (韓太子嬰) in Linjin (臨晉), and agreed to return the seized lands in exchange for the two states denouncing their previous anti-Qin alliance. At the same time, the Chu crown prince secretly fled from Qin back to Chu.
Xiaowen was a son of the King Zhaoxiang of Qin and Queen Tang and grandson of Queen Dowager Xuan.
Subsequently, King Zhaoxiang's foreign advisor, Fan Sui, advised the king to abandon those fruitless campaigns against distant states. King Zhaoxiang heeded Fan's advice and changed Qin's foreign policy to adopting good diplomatic relations with distant states (Yan and Qi), while concentrating on attacking nearby states (Zhao, Han and Wei). As a consequence, Qin began to launch constant attacks on Han and Wei over the next decades, conquering several territories in its campaigns. By then, Qin's territories had expanded to beyond the eastern shore of the Yellow River and Han and Wei were reduced to the status of "buffers" from Qin for the other states in the east.
With the aid of the minister Fan Ju and general Bai Qi, King Zhaoxiang starts making aggressive advances against the other six states in the east. Under his rule, the Qin state destroys the Yiqu state, builds a section of the Great Wall, defeats the Qi and Chu states in battle, forces the Wei and Han states into submission, and inflicts a devastating defeat on the Zhao state at the Battle of Changping. After demonstrating its military power through its victories, in 256 BC the Qin state finally puts an end to the Eastern Zhou dynasty, the nominal suzerain power over the warring states. These events paved the way for the Qin state's eventual unification of China under the Qin dynasty within the next half-century.