Qi (Henan)

Qi (Chinese: "Qǐ") was a minor feudal state that appeared in Chinese history from the beginning of the Shang Dynasty (16th c. BCE) until the beginning of the Warring States Period, circa 445 BCE.

History

The state of Qi was said to have been founded when the first king of the Shang Dynasty enfeoffed the direct descendants of the royal family of the deposed Xia Dynasty in the area that is now Qi County in Kaifeng, eastern Henan. The state of Qi gradually moved eastward to the area of Xintai in Shandong Province until it was finally destroyed by King Hui of Chu. One of these progeny of the Xia Dynasty, Chunwei, was supposed to have become the king of the Xiongnu in later Chinese history. [http://www.cqvip.com/QK/81272X/2005003/15616347.html 夏代是杜撰的吗——与陈淳先生商榷]

The state of Qi was apparently very small in scale, as it is rarely mentioned in ancient Chinese documents except to say that "its affairs are not worth mentioning." It is perhaps best known as the inspiration for a popular Chinese idiom, 杞人憂天 ("qǐ rén yōu tiān", literally, "Qi people lament heaven" or "the people of Qi worry about the sky"), which is said to refer to the fact that the people of Qi often talked anxiously about the sky falling down on their heads. The idiom is used when mocking a person's needless anxiety over an impossible, inconsequential, or inevitable matter.

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