King Nan of Zhou (400–255 BCE)
Born 400 BCE, died 255 BCE.
King Nan of Zhou (?–256 BC), personal name Ji Yan, also less commonly known as King Yin of Zhou, was the last king of the Zhou dynasty of China. He was the son of King Shenjing and grandson of King Xian. He was king from 314 BC until his death in 256 BC, a reign of fifty-nine years, the longest in the Zhou dynasty and all of pre-imperial China. By the time of King Nan's reign, the king of Zhou had lost almost all political and military power, as even their remaining crown land was split into two states, led by rival feudal lords: Western Zhou state, where the capital Wangcheng was located, and Eastern Zhou state, centred at Chengzhou. Therefore, King Nan lacked any personal territory and was effectively under the control of the local feudal lords, essentially relying on their charity. However, Nan's symbolic and ritual power remains disputed. On one side, the feudal states largely ignored the king's activities and adopted royal titles and rituals for themselves, while the Zhou dynasty's fall generally received meagre contemporary coverage and attention. This led to the assumption that King Nan no longer had any symbolic power or semblance of royal authority left.
Text from the Wikipedia article King_Nan_of_Zhou, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.