place
Wu
also: the state of Wu, 吳
Powerful state of the lower Yangtze in the late Spring and Autumn period, the court Sun Tzu traditionally served under King Helü. Locked in a feud with its neighbor Yue that ended in its destruction (473 BC).
Reading notes
- The Art of War §11.4 men of Wu and the men of Yue
Wu and Yue, the feuding states of the lower Yangtze whose hatred was proverbial; "same boat" (同舟) — their sailors saving one another in a storm — became the standing Chinese idiom for enemies forced into common cause.