Guangzhou in Qin and Han

In ancient time, goat as an animal was not native to the southern coastal region.

 

When the Zhou dynasty came to rule China, the household of Zhou assigned its Ji members to various places beyond Zhou's own royal domain, these Ji clans established more than 70 states all over China.

 

We know some of those Ji feudal states and their influential role in history, such as the Jin, Yan, Wu states.

 

But many of these Ji states are not well know, for example, its only after the famous archaeological discovery of the tomb of the sovereign of Zeng state in 1978, did people realize such state existed, because previously we have no historical records mentioning this state.

 

Apparently, before Chu state absorbed Zeng state, it was relatively speaking a fairly strong state, consider that it had the role of watching over the Chu for the Zhou dynasty, and Chu's wage of initial campaigns against Zeng were unsucessful.

And Zeng wasnt the only Ji state located in the "land of Chu".

 

However, Chu was destined to become a big and powerful feudal state, it had to get rid of these petty(Chu was petty at the begining as well) Ji states around it.

 

When the Wu state was destroyed by the Yue state, some members of the Wu household fled southwards as it was then not within the reach of their conquer's immediate grasp.

 

Similarly, when the Chu destroyed some of these unnamed petty Ji states, some fled southwards.

 

The Zhou people once lived to the north-west, where goat is a native animal, historian believe the founding of Guangzhou was linked to one of those petty feudal state where the nickname "city of goat" was derived from.