Established notions on the relationship between rulers and ministers, and between ritual and politics, are being redefined by the study of recently excavated bamboo manuscripts. The present paper discusses and provides the first western annotated translation of “Jian da wang po han” 簡大王迫旱 (King Jian dispels the drought), a fourth century B.C. bamboo manuscript from Chu staging a debate between ruler and minister over the cause of a drought afflicting the kingdom and the best way to deal with it. The drought is interpreted as punishment, but opinions differ over the nature of its cause: a ritual, moral or administrative failure of the king. The paper investigates as well prevalent opinions over the relationship between the king and his kingdom in terms of the metaphor equating the kingdom and its people with the king's own body, and how the sacrificial exposure of the king's body to the scorching sun might heal the suffering the drought brings upon the kingdom. The debate over the mode and meaning of such sacrifice is connected with different views about the nature of the kingdom, its proper organization, the crises facing it and the role of previous traditions, both in Chu and in the wider Warring States intellectual history.