Biography
Family Background and Early Life
The historical sources do not record Zhou Zao's family background. His earliest known experience appears in the *Records of the Grand Historian*, which says that he “followed the uprising at Dang as a soldier.” Dang County was a county of Qin Sishui Commandery, north of present-day Yongcheng, Henan. After Liu Bang rose at Pei County in the ninth month of 209 BCE, he campaigned through the surrounding region and captured Dang the following year, incorporating some five thousand local troops. Zhou Zao joined Liu Bang's army as an ordinary soldier around this time.
Sima Zhen's commentary on the *Records of the Grand Historian*, citing the Han tables, and the *Book of Han* both preserve the phrase that he “followed the uprising at Dang as a soldier.” The phrase indicates that Zhou Zao entered Liu Bang's movement at the lowest military level, unlike founding officials such as Xiao He and Cao Shen, who had begun as county clerks. Zhou Zao rose entirely through battlefield service.
Entry into Han and the Chu–Han Contention
In 206 BCE, when Liu Bang was made King of Han and established his capital at Nanzheng, Zhou Zao followed him into Hanzhong as a *lian'ao*. The exact duties of this Chu-Han-era office are unclear; it was probably a relatively low-ranking military or administrative post concerned with supplies or reception.
After Liu Bang regrouped in Hanzhong, he moved to reconquer the Three Qins in the eighth month of the same year and then advanced east against Xiang Yu. During this period Zhou Zao was appointed Commandant of the Long Pike, apparently commanding troops armed with long-shafted pikes. He fought Xiang Yu in this capacity and earned sufficient merit for a future marquisate. The *Records of the Grand Historian* summarizes his service as having “attacked Xiang Yu as Commandant of the Long Pike and earned merit.”
The Chinese source states that the Chu–Han Contention lasted from 206 BCE. Zhou Zao served as a mid-ranking officer in multiple engagements, though the surviving histories do not preserve their details. After Xiang Yu's defeat in 202 BCE, Liu Bang became emperor and began large-scale enfeoffment of meritorious followers.
Enfeoffment and Status among the Founding Officials
On the dingwei day of the first month of Emperor Gaozu's sixth year (7 March 201 BCE), Zhou Zao was made Marquis of Longlu. Longlu was a county of Henei Commandery, in present-day Linzhou, Henan. The number of households in his fief is not preserved. The *Records of the Grand Historian* ranks him thirty-fourth among the founding marquises, placing him in the upper-middle portion of the list.
Military merit was the principal basis of early Han enfeoffment. Zhou Zao's rise from common soldier to marquis therefore represents a typical path of advancement through battlefield service. He was enfeoffed in the same first-month distribution as such figures as Zhang Liang, Marquis of Liu, and Chen Ping, Marquis of Huyou.
The Nanyue Campaign under Empress Lü
In the ninth month of 181 BCE, Zhao Tuo, king of Nanyue, styled himself Martial Emperor of Nanyue and attacked frontier districts of the Changsha kingdom, taking several counties. Earlier, Empress Lü had accepted a proposal to prohibit the export of iron implements to Nanyue, and relations deteriorated. Zhao Tuo suspected that the policy originated with Wu You, king of Changsha (called Wu Hui in the *Records of the Grand Historian*), and therefore attacked Changsha.
Empress Lü sent Zhou Zao as general to campaign against Nanyue. His army moved south into Changsha, but intense summer heat and humidity caused widespread epidemic disease, and the troops could not cross Yangshan Ridge, in the Nanling mountains between northern Guangdong and Hunan. The *Records of the Grand Historian* states that because of the heat and damp, disease spread through the soldiers and “the army could not cross the ridge.” The Han force therefore remained north of the mountains facing Nanyue.
In the seventh month of the following year, 180 BCE, Empress Lü died. The Han halted the offensive and withdrew. During the political transition, Zhao Tuo sent a letter to Zhou Zao asking the Han to remove forces stationed in Changsha and to locate his brothers in Zhending, in present-day Zhengding, Hebei. Zhou Zao forwarded the letter to the court. After Emperor Wen's accession, the Han withdrew as requested, treated Zhao Tuo's relatives in Zhending favorably, and repaired his ancestral graves. Han-Nanyue relations thereby eased.
Campaign against the Xiongnu under Emperor Wen
In the winter of 166 BCE, Laoshang Chanyu Jiyu led 140,000 Xiongnu cavalry into Han territory, breached the Chaona barrier and Xiaoguan, killed Sun Ang, commandant of Beidi, seized people and livestock, reached Pengyang, burned the Huizhong palace, and sent scouts as far as the Ganquan palace in Yong, threatening Chang'an.
Emperor Wen organized an emergency defense. Zhou She, Commandant of the Capital, was made General of the Guards, and Zhang Wu, Chamberlain for Attendants, General of Chariots and Cavalry; they deployed a thousand chariots and 100,000 cavalry near Chang'an. Lu Qing, Marquis of Chang, was made General of Shangjun; Wei Su, Marquis of Ning, General of Beidi; and Zhou Zao General of Longxi, each guarding one commandery. Emperor Wen wished to campaign personally but was dissuaded by Empress Dowager Bo. He therefore appointed Zhang Xiangru, Marquis of Dongyang, Grand General, Dong Chi, Marquis of Cheng, Vanguard General, and Luan Bu as another general, and launched a large counteroffensive. After remaining within the frontier for more than a month, the Xiongnu withdrew, and the Han army pursued beyond the passes before returning.
Zhou Zao thus commanded the Han forces in Longxi as part of the general defense and counterattack. He retained his title Marquis of Longlu after the campaign.
Later Years and Death
Zhou Zao had held his marquisate since 201 BCE and, according to the source's count, passed through seven years of Emperor Gaozu's reign, eight of Emperor Hui, eight under Empress Lü, and seventeen under Emperor Wen, for a total of thirty-nine years as marquis. He died in 163 BCE, the first year of Emperor Wen's Later Yuan period, with the posthumous title Ai; the *Book of Han* table gives Ke.
His son Zhou Tong succeeded to the title in 162 BCE. In 149 BCE, the first year of Emperor Jing's Middle Yuan period, Zhou Tong was sentenced to the *wan* punishment, involving shaving of the side hair, and to labor as a wall-builder; the marquisate of Longlu was abolished. According to the *Book of Han*, in 62 BCE, the fourth year of Emperor Xuan's Yuankang era, an unnamed great-great-grandson of Zhou Zao, then a *gongcheng* of Yangling, was ordered to have the family household restored.