Part I: Pre-Qin Accounts of Wu Zixu’s Death

There is no way to know for sure as we cannot get into the head of King Fuchai and directly extract his motives, but we can arrive at some well-informed guesses based on historical records, especially concerning the power struggle between Wu Zixu and King Fuchai at the time. If we go with the accounts in early Imperial Chinese records, most notably Shiji and Chunqiu Fanlu, the likely explanation would be that King Fuchai, being involved in a decades long power struggle with Wu Zixu, wanted to publicly display Zixu’s dead body in order to send a clear message, especially to Zixu’s supporters, that Fuchai is the sole victor of the power struggle. Given Wu Zixu’s popularity among Wu people for his civil infrastructure projects (most notably the establishment of Xu Canal and expansions of irrigation systems), it is quite possible that King Fuchai wanted to dispose Zixu’s body in a way that does not leave a burial site for Zixu’s supporters to admire. If we take pre-Qin historical accounts into consideration, then everything becomes more muddled… This is gonna be a long read, so I will divide my response into two parts. The first Part will focus on pre-Qin written records of Wu Zixu’s death, and Part 2 I will discuss early Imperial narratives on the same events, which mostly shaped our current impressions of “Wu Zixu's corpse thrown in the river” episode.

So a quick and very high altitude background on the broader historical background for those who are not familiar with the characters involved. The time frame is the Spring and Autumn period of Classical Chinese history, from approximately 771 to 476 BCE. The nominal seat of dynastic power, Zhou Tianzi (lit “Son of Heaven”) was in decline, and in Confucious’ own words, the “feudal rite and hymns have crumbled （禮樂崩壞）.” It was a time when former Zhou feudal domains became de-facto independent sovereign states. Larger states swallow smaller ones. And rapid reforms and power restructuring took place across various major Chinese states in order to claim economic and military hegemony over their peers. Consequently, old feudal aristocratic powers were displaced by an emerging class of scholarly statesmen, such as Confucious and his disciples, who traveled throughout China and offered their expertise and allegiance to the highest bidder. Five hegemonic powers emerged during the Spring and Autumn era, except historians (even extemporaneous ones) disagree which five’s, so we are really talking about seven: state of Qi, Jin and Chu are universally agreed hegemons, the other two were disputed among the state of Song, Qin, Chu and Yue. Our Wu ZiXu, being contemporaneous with Confucious, originally served as a minister for the Chu Kingdom, was involved in a power struggle in Chu and fled to the State of Wu in modern day Shanghai and Jiangsu regions. Driven by his desire to avenge his enemies back in the State of Chu, Wu Zixu helped King Helü of Wu in transforming his domain formerly known as “eastern barbarian lands” into a formidable military and economic powerhouse, and eventually waged a successful military campaign as a Wu general against the Chu state. Not only Wu Zixu made good with his vow for vengeance against Chu, but by doing so he also catapulted the State of Wu within the reach of hegemonic status, thereby consolidating his place as one of the household “great heroes” figures of the time.

Now back to the main subject, the “tossing Wu Zixu’s body into the river” part. First thing first, we actually don’t know exactly what happened to Wu Zixu after his (forced) suicide per King Fuchai’s order. We have yet to find records of Wu Zixu’s dramatic death from contemporaneous historical writings (e.g. Spring and Autumn Annals). Only the Spring and Autumn Zuozhuan did provide a relatively detailed description on Wu Ziqu’s political career (referred in Zuozhuan as Wu Yuan / 伍員 which is his birth name), and basic facts are largely consistent with what’s written in Shiji. However, Zuozhuan’s last mentioning of Wu Ziqu was his political downfall which took place on the first year of Duke Ai of Lu, which translates to 494 BCE (Spring and Autumn Annals are based on the reign era of the State of Lu), which is ten years prior to Wu Yuan’s suicide. Zuozhuan also accounts King Fuchai and his conflict with Wu Zixu back in the State of Wu, but did not mention anything relating to Fuchai ordering the death of Wu Ziu or “body down into the river” that sort of business. Note omission here does not imply the event did not take place. As Spring and Autumn Annals is first and foremost an official chronicle for the State of Lu, its accounts of Fuchai and Wu Zixu are only written in the context of their significance to Lu’s state affairs. What happened to Wuzi Xu after him being sidelined is mostly a matter of Wu’s internal affairs, and there’s no compelling reason to include them in Lu’s official record.

Ironically, it is very possible that the earliest known writing on “Wu Zixu's corpse thrown in the river” was by the famous Chu poet and statesman Qu Yuan (340 -278BC), who as many of you already know, committed suicide by jumping into the Miluo river after his political ousting. In his poem Bei Huifeng 《悲回風》 from the Jiu Zhang 《九章》 collection, Qu Yuan wrote the following gloomy lines:

吾怨往昔之所冀兮 悼來者之悐悐
浮江淮而入海兮 從子胥而自適

And my rough translation:

“Ah! How much I resent my past expectations, yet it is my future I mourn with greater fear and consternation. O! I see myself floating through Yangtze and Huai Rivers into the East Sea, it is Wu Zixu’s path which I shall follow to my own satisfaction.

Tragic foreshadowing of Qu Yuan’s suicide aside, his poem was written more than a hundred years after Wu Zixu’s death. It is also unclear, especially considering Qu Yuan’s romantic literary style, that the “floating through the rivers” narrative was used as a historical reference or purely as a poetic metaphor.

Another pre-Shiqi record explicitly mentions the “river” episode of Wu Zixu’s death is Zhanguo Ce or Strategies of the Warring States, a collection of writings on warfare and statecraft from (most likely) the late Warring States period. Specifically, the account is found in these lines from Yan Ce II of Zhanguo Ce, and my line by line rough translation: