Qi

Qi a legendary ancient Chinese ruler, the son of Yu the Great and traditionally the second king of the Xia dynasty, whose succession marked the transition from rule by merit to hereditary kingship. He is remembered as the founder of dynastic succession in China and as a ruler associated with music and sacrifice.

The Son of Yu and the Hereditary Principle

Qi is the son of Yu the Great, the legendary tamer of the floods and founder of the Xia dynasty. His accession is one of the decisive moments in the traditional history of China, for with him the throne passed from father to son rather than to the worthiest man, and the principle of hereditary succession replaced the older ideal of rule by merit. This change was remembered as the end of the age of the sage kings.

According to the classical accounts, Yu had intended that the throne should pass to a minister of proven virtue, as Yao had passed it to Shun and Shun to Yu. But the people favoured Yu's son Qi, and after Yu's death they came to him and acknowledged him as their ruler, so that the succession fell to him by the choice of the people as well as by inheritance. One tradition holds that Qi quarrelled with the appointed successor and seized the throne.

Whatever the details, the memory of Qi's accession marks the founding of the dynastic principle. From this time forward, according to the tradition, the throne belonged to a single family, and the Xia dynasty was established as the first of the hereditary dynasties of China. Qi thus stands at the boundary between the legendary age of the sage kings and the historical sequence of dynasties.

Reign and the Consolidation of the Xia

As ruler Qi is said to have worked to consolidate the power of the new dynasty. He is described as attacking a rebellious chieftain of the Youhu clan and defeating him in a great battle, an episode that gave the dynasty its first military victory and confirmed its authority over the central plain. The records of his campaigns were remembered as evidence of the violent origin of dynastic rule.

He is said to have established the rites and institutions of the kingdom, to have ordered the sacrifices to the ancestors and to heaven and earth, and to have governed with the counsel of able ministers. Tradition credits him with the maintenance of the calendar and of the agricultural order established by Yu, and with the continuation of the tribute system by which the state was supported.

The accounts of his reign are late and coloured by the political concerns of the writers who preserved them. Some texts portray him as a good ruler who secured the realm, others as a man of pleasure. What is consistent is the memory that with Qi the dynasty was founded and that the hereditary principle was established as the norm of Chinese government for the following dynasties.

Music, Sacrifice and Culture

Qi is especially associated with music and with the performance of sacrifice. The classic of history states that he had music performed in the ancestral temple and in the courts, and that the pieces composed in his honour were used in later generations as models of ritual music. Music held a central place in Chinese political thought, where the harmony of the notes was taken to express the harmony of the state.

He is said to have loved music and to have devoted himself to its performance and enjoyment, and the tradition records that he composed or commissioned works for the ceremonies of the kingdom. The association of Qi with song and with the ordering of sound gave him a lasting place in the cultural memory of the Xia, even though the details of his reign are uncertain.

Along with music Qi is remembered for the development of the sacrifices due to the ancestors and to the powers of nature. The establishment of regular ritual bound the dynasty to the divine order and gave the throne a sacred character, and this link between kingship, music and sacrifice remained a fundamental idea of Chinese government.

The Xia Dynasty and its Memory

The Xia dynasty, of which Qi is reckoned the second king, was traditionally regarded as the first dynasty of China, ruling the central plain for several centuries before being overthrown by the Shang. It was remembered as the age in which the institutions of Chinese civilisation were first formed, and its kings as the earliest of the dynastic rulers.

Historians have long debated whether the Xia existed as a single unified state. The earliest written accounts date from many centuries after the supposed events, and no contemporary inscriptions name its kings. Some scholars treat the Xia as a traditional rather than a documented dynasty, while others connect its memory with the archaeological cultures of the second millennium before the common era.

Whatever the historical reality, the legend of Qi marked for Chinese tradition the moment when the throne became hereditary, an event of enormous significance for the long history of Chinese monarchy. His descendants were said to have ruled until the tyrant Jie lost the mandate of heaven and the dynasty passed to the Shang, completing the cycle of rise and fall that shaped Chinese ideas of history.

Influence and Legacy

Qi's accession was cited throughout Chinese history as the origin of hereditary kingship. Rulers defended the principle of succession within the family by appeal to his example, and critics of dynastic rule pointed to the contrast with the sage kings who had given the throne to the worthiest. His reign thus became a permanent point of reference in debates over the nature of legitimate government.

Within the legendary history of China, Qi is the link between the age of the sage kings and the age of the dynasties. Through him the achievements of Yu were transmitted to a line of kings, and the Xia became the first of the families that ruled the central plain. He is remembered as the founder of a principle as much as a person, the beginning of the dynastic order that governed China for millennia.

His cult and memory persisted in the classical histories, in the sacrifice offered to the early kings, and in the genealogies that traced the rulers of China to the Xia. He remains a comparatively shadowy figure beside Yu and the sage kings, yet his place in the traditional account of Chinese origins is secure: he is the king with whom the dynasties began.

References

^[1] ^[2] ^[3] ^[4]

↑ James Legge, The Chinese Classics: The Shoo King, Oxford University Press, 1865.
↑ Anne Birrell, Chinese Mythology: An Introduction, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
↑ Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
↑ Sarah Allan, The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China, State University of New York Press, 1991.

[r1-1] James Legge, The Chinese Classics: The Shoo King, Oxford University Press, 1865.

[r2-2] Anne Birrell, Chinese Mythology: An Introduction, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

[r3-3] Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

[r4-4] Sarah Allan, The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China, State University of New York Press, 1991.

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