Page "Wuxia" Paragraph 4

Even though wuxia, as the name of a genre, is a recent coinage, stories about the xia date back more than 2, 000 years.

Wuxia stories have their roots in some early youxia tales from 300 – 200 BC.

The Legalist philosopher Han Fei spoke disparagingly of youxias in his book Han Feizi in the chapter On Five ' Maggot ' Classes ( 韩非子 · 五蠹 ) about the five social classes in the Spring and Autumn Period.

Some well-known stories include Zhuan Zhu's assassination of King Liao of Wu, and most notably, Jing Ke's attempt on the life of the King of Qin ( who would become Qin Shi Huang later ).

In the Assassins volume ( 刺客列傳 ) of Records of the Grand Historian, Sima Qian outlined a number of notable assassins from the Warring States Period, who undertook tasks of conducting political assassinations of aristocrats and nobles.