Person

Jing Ke

d. 227 BCE · 3rd century BCE

Jing Ke was a retainer of Crown Prince Dan of Yan who tried to assassinate King Zheng of Qin, the future First Emperor, in 227 BCE. Admitted to the Qin court with a map of Yan territory hiding a dagger and the head of a Qin defector, he failed and was killed. Qin answered by invading Yan, and Jing Ke became the model of the self-sacrificing assassin in Chinese tradition.

Jing Ke
Image: ReijiYamashina777 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 1 profile

State of QinDecline

Mentioned in 1 state history

State of Yan

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Jing Ke. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/jing-ke
MLA
“Jing Ke.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/jing-ke. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Jing Ke.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/jing-ke.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Jing Ke’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/jing-ke (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻