#chu-han contention

[a-modern-major-general]

Xiang Yu's young concubine, the Lady Yu (born Yu Miaoyi), who always travelled with him on campaign, was captured during one of these skirmishes and Han Xin quickly conveyed her to Gaixia. He positioned his captive, and the bulk of his troops, deep in the canyon but situated other groups of warriors along the route. Xiang Yu, knowing he was walking into a trap, mobilized his forces to save the woman he loved. He sent most of his army on toward his capital at Pengcheng and, with 100,000 warriors, marched for Gaixia.

Once Xiang Yu's forces had fully entered the canyon, Han Xin deployed his troops in the “ambush from ten sides” and destroyed the army. Xiang Yu and his remaining forces fought on until nightfall, finally rescuing Lady Yu. In the darkness then, Liu Bang and Han Xin ordered their men and the captured enemy soldiers to sing the native songs of Chu. These songs reminded the remaining Chu forces of their homes and their families and further demoralized the army. Men began deserting in the darkness and headed for their homes.

Xiang Yu rose to stop the deserters by force but, at the request of Lady Yu, relented and those who wished to were allowed to leave. He then sat drinking with Lady Yu and is said to have composed the lament The Song of Gaixia (which is still sung today). Listening to the songs of his native land sung by the enemy throughout the night, Xiang Yu believed that Western Chu must have fallen to the Han and his cause was lost. With Lady Yu, he sang his lament and, according to the historian Sima Qian (145-86 BCE), alternated verses with her which is how the song is often sung in the modern day.

Lady Yu performed the sword dance as she sang her verses and then, blaming herself for the Chu defeat, and wishing to save Xiang Yu from further disaster through his love for her, she killed herself with his sword. Though surrounded by enemy forces, with his troops steadily deserting him, Xiang Yu ignored the pleas of his counselors to move on and buried Lady Yu, erecting a large mound over her grave to prevent desecration.

By morning, Xiang Yu had fewer than 800 men under his command but, with these smaller numbers, he was able to maneuver more easily and fought his way back out of the canyon of Gaixia. He headed directly for Pengcheng, the Han forces following quickly at his heels, and reached the Wu River where they caught up with him. A fierce battle ensued in which most of the Chu forces were slaughtered. Xiang Yu fought to the end and, when he understood he would soon be captured, committed suicide by slitting his own throat with his sword. He was 30 years old.

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

@romanceyourdemons im sorry but your response makes such a funny reaction

[incorrectbcchina]

"What up, I'm Liu Bang, I'm 19, and I never fucking learned how to read." -Liu Bang, probably, sitting somewhere in Pei County

[apollo-cackling]

I get the sense that most of the time periods I was interested in as a kid are pretty niche which huh

[frasohei]

Thinking about the tragedy of Ziying, the last Qin emperor. He didn’t want to be emperor, ended up in the palace, killed Zhou Gao who caused the fall of Qin, and after surrendering to Liu Bang is murdered by Xiang Yu, along with all his male relatives… sad really

[romanceyourdemons]

Hello there! For film recs, have you seen The Last Supper or 王的盛宴 by Lu Chuan from 2012, it is an excellent historical drama based on the founding of the Han Dynasty and the Chu-Han Contention and incredibly detailed and while it does not follow the details described by Sima Qian, where it deviates it does so deliberately to question what is the real history or not and how much is the narrative constructed by Liu Bang and more importantly Empress Lu (who is portrayed magnificently and chillingly)? Also on a lighter note, the hilariously odd Dragon Blade by Daniel Lee, which stars Jackie Chan, Adrien Brody, and John Cusack and is about a Roman legion on the run from an evil Roman army and allies with a Chinese fortress along the Silk Road. It is horrible and I adore it.

i’ve seen both of those movies and they’re both some of my absolute favorites. lots of other films try to do what those films do, but none of them do it anywhere near as well. on a related note, have you seen white vengeance (2012)? it’s a hongmen banquet film released in the same year as the last supper (2012), directed by the same guy who directed dragon blade (2015) (daniel lee), and it’s like an evil shadow version of both of those films, to me

[purplehanfu]

Self Indulgent Birthday Post: 2023

notes: Spoilers!, probably. Yay, it's my birthday again! Enjoy some of my finest unfinished work!

Oh? You have both my interest and attention!

Booooo.... (this disappointment brought to you by The Young Brewmaster’s Adventure, which happens to be the prequel to Blood of Youth)

Recap Recycle Bin

So many dramas and never enough time to write a full review. Read on! 

Dominator of Martial Gods

tl:dr for this drama

Each episode is 35 minutes long, feels like 3,500 minutes, and delivers maybe 10 minutes worth of story. Impressive! 

We waste a great deal of time in the first few episodes watching Qin Chen and the bootlicking alchemist refine a needle that will allow our hero to activate his bloodline. Intriguing, because you often hear dramas refer to treasures being refined into weapons, but you never see the process. There's a reason for this- it does not make for compelling viewing. But that does not stop us from standing around arguing about the specs and adding things to the oven. This process was more fun when Chu Wanning just takes you up to the lake. On a technical note, I am enamored of the way the ever present green screened background makes no attempt to be in scale with the human actors.

My Deepest Dream

Ooh, a plot with a time loop, evil birds, superpowers, getting sucked into the Marianas Trench when you just wanted to go on a scuba diving excursion and JIN HAN!!! But, as always, there's a glitch in the matrix.

Our heroine realizes she has lost a year of her life and no one has noticed. No one except the astrophysics PhD candidate turned car mechanic Wu Yu (JIN HAN!!!). Wu Yu divulges that he can read a phone screen at 10 kilometers. But mostly he uses his special eyes to keep an elaborate dossier on the comings and goings of the FL, who lives across the street from the garage he works at. Is that creepy or romantic?

don’t be silly, if it were a Marvel movie we’d be having an interminable CGI sky battle 

Till the End of the Moon

Meet Tantai Jin. As you may have noticed from his costume design, he's totally evil.

He's a goal-oriented CEO who's turned the Devil Sect into a high reliability organization that generates impactful customer experiences (annihilation). I bet he's evil enough to use six sigma. But where Tantai Jin truly shines is personal branding. You may not be buying what he's selling, but product recognition is through the roof.

Tantai Jin seen here working out of his travel office: a flaming, flying boudoir with melting skull detail. This is why CEOs should never make more than 10x what the average worker does.

Circle of Love

I can see why the Republican period was relatively short. Everybody setting fire to each other's estates, staying out late ballroom dancing, getting uniforms tailored, making sure there are enough manacles to chain the female lead to a bed... it doesn't really leave a lot of time for governance.

We start out, as we generally do, with a clean sweep of the FL's family, in this case via a big ol' raging house fire. Where is everyone? Or even anyone? Even Maid's Revenge scraped up some extras to be dead family members.

My Kung Fu Girlfriend

Slow your roll, it ain't GL.

You know what they say- it's not whether you win or lose the MMORPG, it's how you min max all your stats and then act like an ass in chat about it.

Meet Huang Xiao Yu. She clearly did not pay to win because she is the low XP real life martial sister of a kung fu champion. In this drama, she'll level up in love and life with the help of an OP MMO NPC who escapes her game and shows up uninvited in the real world.

The Antarctic Octopus

Not to be confused with the 2020 film Big Octopus. I guess that's the great thing about having an audience of over a billion people- even the most niche interest has plenty of content.

This is how you dress when you visit your Uncle Pete in Antarctica.

In this movie: monsters, explosions, a supercharged ice jalopy and a dedicated ignorance of the laws of physics usually only seen in a Fast and Furious film. But credit where it's due: The Antarctic Octopus delivers. Only 12 seconds in and we get our first tentacle!

available free on youtube although how bravely they were fighting is up for debate

Bonus Content: Superlatives

In the Day We Flipped

My post of the year!

Getting over 500 likes on a review? Unexpected.

Forgetting to add a link back to my other recaps? Priceless.

Bloody Romance

still my favorite drama

when your grandma’s a zombie and she was left in a cave to guard a tiny box with one (1) restorative pill in it and she’s suspended by her hair but her hair is also like tentacles that can kill people and she thinks you’re your mom but she still loves you. 💚💚💚 But then she starts screaming and tries to strangle you with her hair.

Heroes

2nd favorite drama

you know something’s good when you have a file called ‘sappy su mengzhen yang wuxie edits.txt’

go get your man, Wuxie!

pinboard full of recaps!

[nasuverse-most-breedable-tourney]

Side B, Round 1 (Match 4) *Clash of Casters*

On the left: A Chinese military general and politician who served Liu Bang during the Chu–Han Contention and contributed greatly to the founding of the Han dynasty. Han Xin was named as one of the "Three Heroes of the early Han dynasty" along with Zhang Liang and Xiao He. Best remembered as a brilliant military leader for the strategies and tactics he employed in warfare and was undefeated in battle. For his accomplishments he was considered the "God of War". It's Han Xin

On the right: Priest and onmyouji from the Heian period. A monster who stood opposite Abe-no-Seimei, the greatest Heian sorcerer. The Alter Ego is quite different in nature than the Onmyouji priest of the past and the caster version of this self does not have the fused evil spirits of Itzpapalotl, Chernobog, and Akuryo Safu. It's Ashiya Douman

[burningthegallows]

ok so I accidentally deleted that one lltg history post I wrote. I genuinely can’t be assed to recreate it because screenshots and evidence and …

anyway. one of the first things that grabbed my attention in lltg were the beautiful sets and costumes — they’re all so well put together. right down to shanjian’s feathered fan.

that led me to a question: western han (202 BCE - 9 CE) or eastern Han (25-220 CE)??

what I found was that lltg uses a mix of both to make it too ambiguous to place. it’s a fun way to do a period piece I think, cause all the history nerds get to go on scavenger hunts, you can play with historical paragons, and there are so many tropes.

Despite one story being lifted pretty much directly from the eastern Han (emperor guangwu, his 1st and 2nd empresses, and his heaps of children), most of it seems to be more western Han.

{as an aside, it bums me out that they took all these details from these three real people, and the one thing they changed was ex-empress’s end. In history she and her son just go on about their lives as consort and prince, and then they’re given a new province to rule over.}

the imperial city in the show is luoyang (true to eastern han; in han 1.0 western han, it was in xi’an), but I think it’s a bit more thrown together than that. And in fact, I think wendi is actually the Emperor Wen of Han.

And I think that because of the 1) emphasis on thriftiness, 2) the fact that Wen of Han was the one to end the policy of wholesale clan slaughter for particularly egregious crimes (does actually make css kneeling in the rain hit different) and 3) other reasons.

The most interesting of which i think is the 7-states rebellion, a rebellion shut down by Zhou Yafu (paragon of military virtue, known for his integrity), who’s father, Zhou Bo, is a Huo Chong-esque archetype.

(In my original post I had an argument about the xiongnu too, but I can’t remember it now. probably something about the length of the war)

The struggle that takes place 15 years before the series could be the pseudo-coup of Dowager Lü (Empress Gao of Han), or it could be the chu-han contention (ending with first han emperor). Honestly though, then beginning of the eastern han does make sense here. wendi tells 3rd princess (I think) that the dynasty is barely ten years old.

(The period between western and eastern han is short and dominated by warlords)

So the world is more familiar to the western han (2nd-1st century BCE) but it def a hodge-podge — which makes it into a fun (for history nerds) scavenger hunt. Spot the trope: history edition!

[yao-yaos]

Period drama appreciation week 2022

May 16th -Day 1 +May 21st - Day 6: Favorite Drama(s) + Favorite Era(s)

1. Qin Dynasty (秦朝)

2. Chu - Han contention period (楚漢相爭)

3. End of Hand Dynasty and Main Three Kingdoms Period ( 三國時代 )

4. Tang Dynasty (唐朝)

5. Wu Zhou Period (武周)

[paganimagevault]

Emperor Gaozu of Han (aka Liu Bang).

"Emperor Gaozu of Han (256 – 1 June 195 BC), born Liu Bang (Chinese: 劉邦; pinyin: Liú Bāng) with courtesy name Ji (季), was the founder and first emperor of the Han dynasty, reigning in 202–195 BC. His temple name was "Taizu" while his posthumous name was Emperor Gao, or Gaodi; "Gaozu of Han", derived from the Records of the Grand Historian, is the common way of referring to this sovereign even though he was not accorded the temple name "Gaozu", which literally means "High Founder".

Liu Bang was one of the few dynasty founders in Chinese history who was born into a peasant family. Prior to coming to power, Liu Bang initially served for the Qin dynasty as a minor law enforcement officer in his home town Pei County, within the conquered state of Chu. With the First Emperor's death and the Qin Empire's subsequent political chaos, Liu Bang renounced his civil service position and became an anti-Qin rebel leader. He won the race against fellow rebel leader Xiang Yu to invade the Qin heartland and forced the surrender of the Qin ruler Ziying in 206 BC.

After the fall of the Qin, Xiang Yu, as the de facto chief of the rebel forces, divided the former Qin Empire into the Eighteen Kingdoms, and Liu Bang was forced to accept the poor and remote Bashu region (present-day Sichuan, Chongqing, and southern Shaanxi) with the title "King of Han". Within the year, Liu Bang broke out with his army and conquered the Three Qins, starting a civil war known as the Chu–Han Contention as various forces battled for supremacy over China.

In 202 BC, Liu Bang emerged victorious following the Battle of Gaixia, unified most of China under his control, and established the Han dynasty with himself as the founding emperor. During his reign, Liu Bang reduced taxes and corvée, promoted Confucianism, and suppressed revolts by the lords of non-Liu vassal states, among many other actions."

-taken from wikipedia

[a-modern-major-general]

The Han Dynasty (202 BCE - 220 CE) was the second dynasty of Imperial China (the era of centralized, dynastic government, 221 BCE - 1912 CE) which established the paradigm for all succeeding dynasties up through 1912 CE. It succeeded the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE) and was followed by the Period of the Three Kingdoms (220-280 CE).

It was founded by the commoner Liu Bang (l. c. 256-195 BCE; throne name: Gaozu r. 202-195 BCE) who worked toward repairing the damage caused by the repressive regime of the Qin through more benevolent laws and care for the people. The dynasty is divided into two periods:

Western Han (also Former Han): 202 BCE - 9 CE

Eastern Han (also Later Han): 25-220 CE

The separation is caused by the rise of the regent Wang Mang (l. 45 BCE - 23 CE) who declared the Han Dynasty finished and established the Xin Dynasty (9-23 CE). Wang's idealistic form of government failed and, after a brief period of turmoil, the Han Dynasty resumed.

Gaozu initially retained the Qin Dynasty's philosophy of Legalism but with less severity. Legalism gave way to Confucianism under the most famous monarch of the Han, Emperor Wu (also given as Wudi, Wuti, Wu the Great, r. 141-87 BCE) who, among his many other impressive achievements, also opened the Silk Road, establishing trade with the West. The Han also negotiated a peace, which was more or less observed, with the nomadic peoples of the Xiongnu and Xianbi to the north and the Xirong to the west which stabilized the borders and encouraged peace and cultural development in the arts and sciences. Many of the commonplace items taken for granted today were invented by the Han such as the wheelbarrow, the compass, the adjustable wrench, seismograph, and paper, to name only a few.

The Han also restored the cultural values of the Zhou Dynasty, which had been discarded by the Qin, encouraged literacy, and the study of history. The historian Sima Qian (l. 145/35-86 BCE) lived during this period whose Records of the Grand Historian set the standard and form for Chinese historical writings up through the 20th century CE. Chinese mythology and religion also developed during this time including the popular messianic movement focused on the Queen Mother of the West.

By c. 130 CE, however, the imperial court had become corrupt with eunuchs exercising more actual power than the Chinese emperor. By the time of the emperor Lingdi (r. 168-189 CE), the Han royal house had less actual authority than the palace eunuchs and the generals (who were more or less autonomous warlords) stationed at the borders of the country. In 184 CE, the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in response to high taxes and famine and these generals put it down.

Among them was Cao Cao (l. 155-220 CE) who, afterwards, waged war against his fellow commanders for control of the state. He was defeated at the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 CE after which the country was divided between three kingdoms and the Han Dynasty fell. Its legacy is so profound that it continues to the present day and the majority of ethnic Chinese refer to themselves as Han People (Han rem) proudly in identifying themselves as descendants of the great ancient dynasty.

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

HOLY SHIT MOVIE ABOUT THE CHU-HAN CONTENTION WITH CHANG CHEN????? why did none of you tell me i should have watched this film yesterday

[incorrectbcchina]

Liu Bang: I am a bad person. I am a very, very bad person. I am a horrible person.

Xiao He:

Zhang Liang:

Xiang Yu:

Han Xin:

Liu Bang: "No you're not, Bixia! We still love you, Bixia!"

[apollo-cackling]

so unfair the grace of kings has such a low rating on goodreads I'm reading it and it's so good so far

[the-archlich]

Zhang He's article on the Chinese Wikipedia mentions he was a descendant of Zhang Er, one of the Feudal kings during the Chu-Han contention. Is there any historical evidence or are there any documents to support this?

Zhang He's SGZ biography doesn't say anything about his ancestry. Generally speaking this means that there was nothing noteworthy to report, at least as far as Chen Shou knew.

There might be other documents out there. I know of a certain Tang-era genealogy that might make such claims. But given SGZ's silence on the matter, I find it unlikely. Chen Shou was scrupulous about mentioning people's ancestors whenever they had some level of prominence, so I find it doubtful that he would have overlooked something like that in Zhang He's life. Mistakes happen, of course, but in the absence of stronger evidence I don't find it likely.