 As the kingdoms of Wu and Yue, they were famed as fishers, shipwrights, and sword-smiths.Adopting Chinese characters, political institutions, and military technology, they were among the most powerful states during the later Zhou.In the middle Yangtze, the state of Jing seems to have begun in the upper Han River valley a minor Zhou polity, but it adapted to native culture as it expanded south and east into the Yangtze valley.