King You of Zhou

Gōngshēng 宮湦
King yu of Zhou
Reign	781-771 BCE
Spouse	Queen Shen, daughter of the Marquess of Shen Concubine Baosi
Issue
King Ping of Zhou (by Queen Shen) Prince Bofu (by Baosi)
Full name
Jī Gōngshēng or Gōngniè 姬 宮湦 or 宮涅
Posthumous name
Yōu (幽)
House	Jī (姬)
Father	King Xuan of Zhou
Born	795 BCE
Died	771 BCE

King You of Zhou (795 - 771 BCE) (Chinese: 周幽王; pinyin: Zhōu Yōu Wáng) was the twelfth sovereign of the Chinese Zhou Dynasty and the last of Western Zhou Dynasty. He reigned from 781 to 771 BCE.

In 780 BCE, a major earthquake hit Guanzhong. A soothsayer named Bo Yangfu (伯陽甫/伯阳甫) considered this an omen foretelling the destruction of the Zhou Dynasty.

In 779 BCE, a concubine named Baosi entered the palace and came into King You's favour. She bore him a son named Bofu (伯服). King You deposed Queen Shen (申后) and Crown Prince Yijiu (宜臼). He made Baosi the new queen and Bofu the new crown prince.

It is said that Baosi did not laugh easily. After trying many methods and failing, King You tried to amuse his favourite queen by lighting warning beacons and fooling his nobles into thinking that the Quanrong (犬戎) nomads were about to attack. The nobles arrived at the castle only to find themselves laughed at by Baosi. Even after King You had impressed Baosi, he continued to abuse his use of warning beacons and lost the trust of the nobles.

Queen Shen's father, the Marquess of Shen (申侯), was furious at the deposition of his daughter and grandson Crown Prince Yijiu and mounted an attack on King You's palace with the Quanrong. King You called for his nobles using the previously abused beacons but none came. In the end, King You and Bofu were killed and Baosi was captured.

After King You died, nobles including the Marquess of Shen, the Marquess of Zeng (缯侯) and Duke Wen of Xu (許文公/许文公) supported deposed Prince Yijiu as King Ping of Zhou to continue the Zhou Dynasty. As the national capital Haojing (鎬京/镐京) had suffered severe damage, and was located near the potentially dangerous Quanrong, in 771 BCE, King Ping of Zhou moved the capital eastward to Luoyi (雒邑), later called Luoyang, thus beginning the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and ushering in the Spring and Autumn Period which would last for more than 300 years.

References

Sima Qian. Records of the Grand Historian. 4.