King Mu of Zhou

King Mu of Zhou (Chinese: 周穆王; pinyin: Zhōu Mù Wáng) was the fifth king of the Chinese Zhou Dynasty. The dates of his reign are 976-922 BC or 956-918 BC.

Life

King Mu came to the throne after his father King Zhao’s death during his tour to the South. King Mu was perhaps the most pivotal king of the Zhou Dynasty, reigning nearly 55 years, from ca. 976 BC to ca. 922 BC. He was reputed to have lived until the age of 105. He liked to travel and in particular visited the Kunlun Mountains several times during his reign, and is said that he traveled 90,000 kilometers to the west. Mu was more ambitious than wise, yet he was able to introduce reforms that changed the nature of the Zhou Dynasty government, transforming it from a hereditary system to one that was based on merit and knowledge of administrative skills.

During Mu’s reign, the Zhou Dynasty was at its peak, and Mu tried to stamp out invaders in the western part of China and ultimately expand Zhou’s influence to the east. In the height of his passion for conquests, he led an immense army against the Quanrong, who inhabited the western part of China. His travels allowed him to contact many tribes and swayed them to either join under the Zhou banner or be conquered in war with his army. This expedition may have been more of a failure than a success, judging by the fact that he brought back only four white wolves and four white deer. Unintentionally and inadvertently, he thus sowed the seeds of hatred which culminated in an invasion of China by the same tribes in 771 BC. In his thirteenth year the Xu Rong, probably the state of Xu in the southeast, raided near the eastern capital of Fenghao. The war seems to have ended in a truce in which the state of Xu gained land and power in return for nominal submission.

Dynasty Warriors

Dynasty Warriors (真・三國無双, Shin Sangokumusō, literally translated as "True ・ Three Kingdoms Unrivalled") is a series of tactical action games created by Omega Force and Koei. The award-winning series is a spin-off of Koei's turn-based strategy Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, based loosely around the Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms, from which it derives its name in Japanese.

The first game titled Dynasty Warriors, Sangokumusō in Japan, is a fighting game and different from the rest of the series. All English titles are a number ahead of their Japanese counterparts due to the English localization of naming Shin Sangokumusō, a spin-off of the previously mentioned Sangokumusō game, as Dynasty Warriors 2.

It is Koei's most successful franchise. Including its many spin-offs, 18 million copies of the Dynasty Warriors series have sold worldwide by 2011.

Main series

The first Dynasty Warriors (Sangokumusō) is a traditional one-on-one fighting game, released in 1997 for the PlayStation. Its gameplay style is reminiscent of Virtua Fighter and Tekken with the addition of weapons and some exotic moves.