In the fourteenth year of the Gonghe Regency (828 BCE), King Li of Zhou died in the land of Zhi, by which time Crown Prince Ji Jing, who had been living in the Duke of Shao's household, had grown to adulthood. The Dukes of Zhou and Shao decided to install Ji Jing as king and restore power to him. The following year, Ji Jing ascended the throne, becoming the eleventh king of the Zhou Dynasty, known as King Xuan of Zhou.
King Xuan fully absorbed the painful lessons of his father, King Li. Upon ascending the throne, he immediately announced to the people that mountains, forests, rivers, and marshes were shared by all under heaven, and even royal nobles could not monopolize them. When handling state affairs, he would consult with his ministers and never act arbitrarily. Additionally, he widely selected the virtuous and capable, gaining talents such as Zhong Shanfu, Fang Shu, and Yin Jifu. With the assistance of the two dukes of Zhou and Shao, King Xuan's rule had a solid foundation. Under his reforms, the declining Zhou Dynasty experienced a temporary revival.
King Xuan's primary achievement was securing victories in campaigns against the Rong, Di, and Huaiyi tribes that had been harassing the Zhou dynasty. During the popular uprising, the Huaiyi and Western Rong took advantage of the chaos to repeatedly raid Zhou's borders. Throughout the Gonghe Regency, the Dukes of Zhou and Shao adopted a passive defensive stance to stabilize the situation, avoiding counterattacks. Consequently, in the early years of his reign, King Xuan focused his efforts on subjugating these tribes. During King Li's reign, the Western Rong had invaded the state of Qin, seizing Quanqiu. King Xuan exploited the conflict between the Western Rong and Qin by appointing the Qin ruler, Qin Zhong, as a Grand Master to lead an attack on the Western Rong. Shortly after, he also ordered Yin Jifu and Nan Zhong to campaign against the Western Rong.
In the fifth year of King Xuan's reign, the king personally led an expedition against the Western Rong alongside Yin Jifu. Yin Jifu commanded his forces to advance directly to Taiyuan (in present-day Zhenyuan, Gansu), forcing the Western Rong to retreat northwestward. After this campaign, King Xuan ordered Yin Jifu to lead the army southeast to Chengzhou to manage the tribute goods from various vassal states. The Western Zhou's war against the Western Rong greatly intimidated the Huaiyi states, who then expressed their willingness to submit, bringing tribute of silk, grain, and laborers each year.
In the sixth year of King Xuan's reign, Qin Zhong was killed while fighting the Western Rong. Qin Zhong's eldest son succeeded him, becoming Duke Zhuang of Qin. King Xuan ordered Duke Zhuang and his four brothers to lead seven thousand troops to attack the Western Rong again, and they finally achieved victory. King Xuan appointed Duke Zhuang as the Grandee of the Western Frontier and recaptured Quanqiu. Later, King Xuan personally led a large army to attack the Western Rong once more. The two sides fought at Pengya (in present-day northwest Chengcheng, Shaanxi), and the Zhou army won a decisive victory. After this, the Western Rong dared not invade for several years.
While launching a campaign against the Western Rong, King Xuan ordered the Duke of Shao, along with high officials Nan Zhong, Grand Master Huangfu, and Grand Sima Chengbo Xiufu, to lead an army to subdue the Huai Yi tribes that had invaded the Jianghan region. The army marched eastward along the Huai River, bestowing favors upon the people along the way to win their loyalty to the Western Zhou dynasty. They ultimately subdued the most powerful of the southeastern states, Xu, which then agreed to pay tribute.
In the eighteenth year of King Xuan's reign, the great general Nan Zhong ordered Ju Fu and Gao Fu to go to the Huai Yi region to inspect the submission of the local states; all the states welcomed the king's decree, pledged their loyalty and obedience, and presented tribute. Seeing that all the states were willing to submit to the Zhou dynasty, King Xuan resolved to launch a southern campaign against Chu.
During the reign of King Zhao of Zhou, the state of Chu decisively defeated the Western Six Armies of Zhou; under King Mu, Chu submitted to Zhou and assisted in crushing Xu Yanwang; under King Yi, Xiong Qu enfeoffed his three sons as kings to signal defiance; later under King Li, they renounced their royal titles to show submission; during the rebellion of the capital, seeing Zhou in chaos, Chu invaded neighboring states to expand its power and confront Zhou. Chu's fickleness became a persistent headache for Zhou. By King Xuan's time, the Huaiyi states had submitted to Zhou but were often oppressed by Chu, which frequently seized their tribute to Zhou by force. Early in King Xuan's reign, with insufficient national strength and ongoing conflicts with the Western Rong, he could only tolerate Chu's incursions. However, after the northwest was pacified and the state grew strong, Chu remained unbridled. Enraged, King Xuan decided to launch a major southern campaign to punish Jingchu and sweep the southern lands.
The main commander of this southern expedition was the Duke of Shao, one of the pillars of the Zhou royal house, with the general Fang Shu as his deputy. Fang Shu led three thousand chariots as the vanguard, and the Duke of Shao's army received strong support from various feudal lords along the route, allowing the Zhou forces to advance southward with unstoppable momentum. Before the battle, Fang Shu meticulously planned the strategy: using bronze bells and drums as signals to unify the entire army under a single command, thereby ensuring strict military discipline. With their overwhelming numbers and coordinated operations, the Zhou army finally defeated the Chu forces, and the Duke of Shao's army pushed deep into Chu territory. This defeat was a heavy blow to Chu, leaving them unable to continue fighting, forcing them to relocate southward along the Jing Mountains and express willingness to submit to the Zhou court.
Given Chu's unpredictable nature, King Xuan, after careful deliberation, worked with his maternal uncle, the Earl of Shen (the elder brother of King Xuan's mother), to formulate a "Strategy to Control Chu." This was designed to prevent Chu from rebelling again, ensure the security of the Zhou dynasty, and establish a solid defensive line in the south.
King Xuan continued to adopt the enfeoffment system from the early Western Zhou period, granting numerous vassal states to the southern region, thereby establishing a large group of vassal states in the south. These vassals were almost all royal members surnamed Ji, creating a buffer between the State of Chu and the Zhou dynasty. If Chu rebelled again and marched north, these vassal states could unite to resist Chu and block its army. These enfeoffed royal members were known as the "Han Yang Ji" (the Ji clan vassals in the Han River region), and some earlier enfeoffed states were also included in this category.
By this point, the Zhou Dynasty had stabilized its northwestern borders and established a protective barrier in the southeast. King Xuan of Zhou also diligently attended to state affairs and encouraged the development of production, leading to a resurgence of the Zhou Dynasty's golden age, which historians call the "Restoration of King Xuan."
However, this period of revival did not last long. King Xuan reigned for 46 years, waging campaigns across the north and south. Although this expanded the territory of the Western Zhou, it also drained a great deal of manpower, resources, and wealth, leading to the decline of the state. In his early years, he was able to work diligently to revive the Zhou court, but after a string of victories from years of continuous warfare, King Xuan gradually became stubborn and extreme. When Duke Wu of Lu brought his two sons to the capital Haojing to pay homage to the Zhou king, King Xuan saw Duke Wu's younger son, Ji Xi, who was young and endearing, and suddenly had the whimsical idea to force Duke Wu to depose his eldest son, Ji Kuo, and appoint Ji Xi as the crown prince of Lu. By interfering in Lu's succession based on a momentary whim, King Xuan seriously violated the Zhou dynasty's system of primogeniture, sowing the seeds of turmoil in Lu and also stirring discontent among the feudal lords. Although the high minister Fan Zhongshanfu repeatedly admonished King Xuan, by then the king had forgotten his earlier promise to discuss state affairs with his ministers and continued to act willfully. Later, when Duke Wu of Lu died, Ji Xi succeeded to the throne, becoming Duke Yi of Lu.
In the ninth year of Duke Yi of Lu's reign, conflict finally erupted. Bo Yu, the son of Duke Yi's elder brother Ji Kuo, attacked Duke Yi, killed him, and declared himself ruler. Upon hearing this news, King Xuan of Zhou was furious, believing that Lu had defied the king's command. In the eleventh year of Bo Yu's rule, King Xuan led an army to punish Lu, killed Bo Yu, and installed Duke Yi's younger brother, Ji Cheng, as the new ruler, known as Duke Xiao of Lu. Bo Yu was later regarded as a deposed ruler and is referred to as the Deposed Duke of Lu.
King Xuan of Zhou, acting on a sudden whim, took the lead in breaking the rites and repeatedly interfered in the affairs of the State of Lu, plunging it into a twenty-year-long period of chaos. As a result, the authority and prestige of the Zhou Son of Heaven in the eyes of the feudal lords greatly diminished. Gradually, the lords no longer obeyed the king's commands.
By his later years, King Xuan of Zhou became increasingly arrogant and unreasonable, acting arbitrarily. He exhausted the state's resources on military campaigns, unjustly killed loyal officials, and further intensified social conflicts, causing the Zhou dynasty to show signs of decline once again.