page_title: Jizi
section_title: Pre-Qin sources
hierarchical_section_title: Jizi / In ancient Chinese texts / Pre-Qin sources
context_page_description: Jizi or Qizi or kizi was a semi-legendary Chinese sage who is said to have ruled Gija Joseon in the 11th century BCE. Early Chinese documents like the Book of Documents and the Bamboo Annals described him as a virtuous relative of the last king of the Shang dynasty who was punished for remonstrating with the king. After Shang was overthrown by Zhou in the 1040s BCE, he allegedly gave political advice to King Wu, the first Zhou king. Chinese texts from the Han dynasty onwards claimed that King Wu enfeoffed Jizi as ruler of Chaoxian. According to the Book of Han, Jizi brought agriculture, sericulture, and many other facets of Chinese civilization to Joseon.
  Gija may have been the object of a state cult in sixth-century Goguryeo, and a mausoleum to him was established in Goryeo in 1102, but the first extant Korean text to mention Gija was the Samguk Sagi. Starting in the late thirteenth century, Gija was fully integrated into Korean history, being described as a successor to the descendants of Dangun in the state of Old Joseon.
context_section_description: The earliest known mention of Jizi is in the "Mingyi" 明夷 hexagram of the Book of Change. According to other ancient Chinese texts like the Book of Documents, the Analects, and the Bamboo Annals, Jizi was a relative of King Zhou, the last ruler of the Shang Dynasty, and one of the three wise men of Shang, along with Weizi (微子) and Bi Gan. Many  identify him as Grand Tutor of the king. Jizi was either imprisoned or enslaved for remonstrating against King Zhou's misrule. (One later version states that he pretended to be mad after Bigan had been killed by King Zhou.) After Shang was overthrown by the Zhou dynasty in the mid eleventh century BC, Jizi was released by King Wu, to whom he gave advice on how to rule the new polity.
  These texts mention neither Joseon nor Jizi's descendants; they simply describe Jizi as a virtuous man who was trusted by King Wu of Zhou after having been mistreated by the last Shang king.
caption: Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji; ca 100 BCE) was one of the earliest works to claim that Jizi was enfeoffed by King Wu of Zhou as ruler of Chaoxian (= Joseon).
exif: {}