Mitsukuni was fortunate to gain the aid of many eminent scholars, especially that of the Chinese Ming dynasty loyalist Chu Shun-shui.
Qu was a poet and a minister, born into the Chu court, during the Zhou dynasty, when China was divided into seven warring kingdoms.
Following Liu Bang's victory in the Chu–Han Contention, the resulting Han dynasty was named after the Hanzhong fief.
When Zhao Zheng (who, as Shihuangdi, became the first emperor of the Qin dynasty) conquered the kingdom of Chu in 223 bce, the Chinese domain was finally unified within the bounds of a monolithic state.
From 350 to 221 bce Hunan formed the southernmost extension of the state of Chu, which was nominally ruled by the Zhou dynasty.
In 202BC, the former peasant Liu Bang emerged victorious from the Chu–Han Contention that followed the rebellion that toppled the Qin dynasty, and proclaimed himself Emperor of the Han dynasty, becoming known as Emperor Gaozu of Han (r.202195) to posterity.
After the fall of the Tang dynasty (618 907), it became the capital of the independent Chu state (927 951) that subsequently fell to other regional powers until being incorporated into the Song dynasty (960 1279).
Laozi was a native of Chu, according to the Shiji, a southern state in the Zhou dynasty (see map and discussion in Loewe and Shaughnessy 1999, 594 and 597).
Since lacquer is almost totally impervious to water, vessels and wine cups have been excavated in perfect condition from waterlogged graves of the late 5th-century-bce Zeng state in Suixian, of the 4th 3rd-century-bce Chu state in Jiangling (now Shashi), and of the early 2nd-century-bce Han dynasty in Changsha.
Han dynasty librarian Wang Yi, best known as the compiler of the received version of the Verses of Chu, wrote several object-description fu in the early 2nd century AD, such as "Fu on the Lychee" (Lìzhī fù ), the earliest known poetic description of the lychee fruit.
