The Story of Top Yu, King of Suqian Chu

In 202 BC, China's first unified feudal dynasty, the Qin Dynasty, was born. Today's World Heritage Site, the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shi Huang in Shaanxi, China, is a remnant of this dynasty. Another World Heritage Site, the Great Wall of China, also first took shape during the Qin Dynasty.

Because the rulers of the Qin Dynasty were so ambitious, especially Qin Shi Huang, who built luxurious palaces and tombs for himself and spent huge sums of money on his palace, the exploitation of the people was so cruel that it continually provoked the people to revolt. As a result, the Qin Dynasty was overthrown after 15 years. After the fall of the Qin Dynasty, there were two forces competing for the rule of the new state, one led by Xiang Yu and the other by Liu Bang.

Xiang Yu was a general from Chu with a strong, arrogant and valiant character. Liu Bang was a low-level bureaucrat before the Qin Dynasty was wiped out, with a somewhat cunning character, but very good at using people. During the war against the Qin Dynasty, the two men had been brothers and showed solidarity with each other. Once the Qin dynasty fell, the two men turned against each other.

In the beginning, Xiang Yu had an absolute advantage. He named himself "King of Western Chu", which is equivalent to an emperor, and named Liu Bang "King of Han", which is equivalent to a vassal king. In order to save his own power, Liu Bang recognized Xiang Yu's dominance on the surface and secretly recruited talents and developed his army. Gradually, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu became evenly matched.

The war between Xiang Yu and Liu Bang lasted for several years, and is known in history as the "Battle of Chu and Han". At one point, Xiang Yu defeated Liu Bang and captured Liu Bang's father and wife. Xiang Yu took Liu Bang's father as a hostage and demanded Liu Bang to surrender, threatening to kill Liu Bang's father and make soup for him if he didn't surrender. Unexpectedly, Liu Bang said to Xiang Yu, "We were brothers when we fought against Qin, my father is your father, if you take 'our father' to make soup, make sure you don't forget to share a piece of it with me." Xiang Yu had no choice but to send Liu Bang's father and wife back.

The life-and-death duel between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu took place at a place called Gaixia (in present-day Anhui Province). After a fierce battle, Liu Bang's army surrounded Xiang Yu and his army. Although Xiang Yu was already at a disadvantage, he still had 100,000 troops, and Liu Bang was not able to destroy Xiang Yu at once.

One night, Xiang Yu and his soldiers heard a familiar song ringing around them. When they listened carefully, it turned out to be the folk songs of their hometown, Chu. The song was coming from Liu Bang's camp. Xiang Yu and his soldiers were very surprised, thinking that Liu Bang had already captured their hometown and taken many of their relatives as prisoners, and the familiar song also aroused the soldiers' homesickness. Xiang Yu's army was in a state of chaos, and the soldiers fled in the night, leaving only a few hundred of the 100,000 men behind.

This was a ploy used by Liu Bang. He organized his own soldiers to sing those sentimental folk songs of Chu, precisely to destabilize Xiang Yu's army.

The Battle of Gaixia was eventually won by Liu Bang, and Xiang Yu was forced to commit suicide. Later, Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty. The Han Dynasty period was one of the strongest periods in Chinese history, and was noted by the world in terms of economy and culture.