Liu Bang made the opening move. With a secure base in Qin and with the unlimited resources of Sichuan to draw on, he was in the same enviable position as the Qin kings of the ‘Warring States’ period. At the head of an army that had suddenly grown to a no doubt exaggerated 560,000 men, he swept east and took the Chu capital of Pengcheng. Meanwhile Xiang Yu, whose kingdom was more vulnerable to attack from the rear, was quashing opposition far to the east in Shandong. Greeting the news of Liu Bang’s onslaught with his customary outburst, Xiang Yu headed to the rescue. Despite a march of several hundred kilometres and only 30,000 men, he drove back the enemy, reclaimed Pengcheng and won two resounding victories – such was his undoubted genius as a field commander.

      Liu Bang should have been captured at the second Pengcheng battle. But surrounded on all sides and with no hope of relief, he was saved by a dust storm. Day turned to night and he escaped in the confusion; Heaven had not forgotten him. His family were taken prisoner and his great army virtually annihilated, but he fought on. Twice more he was surrounded and twice more escaped. A lull while Xiang Yu marched off to quell more unrest on his eastern seaboard allowed Liu Bang to recoup his strength. Provisions and men reached him from Sichuan and Qin down the Wei and Yellow rivers; other hastily recruited forces were sent to stir up trouble behind the Chu lines and to intercept supplies.

      By the time Xiang Yu returned to the front in 203 BC, a military stalemate had set in. To break it, Xiang Yu first threatened to kill Liu Bang’s captive father, then offered to settle matters in personal combat with Liu Bang himself. Liu Bang failed to rise to either challenge. Time, as well as Heaven, was now on Liu Bang of Han’s side. While his resources were being constantly replenished from Sichuan and Qin, Xiang Yu’s troops were tiring, their supplies failing and their strength being sapped by constant trouble from Chu’s supposedly subordinate states. With Xiang Yu away putting down yet another such revolt, Liu Bang experienced a rare taste of victory. It was short-lived. Again Xiang Yu came dashing to the rescue and again Liu Bang withdrew rather than risk battle with an apparently invincible foe.

      Both sides repeatedly accused one another of treachery; there was in fact little to choose between them in this respect. Even Sima Qian, a Han subject who had necessarily to uphold the reputation of the Han founder, had no intention of thereby damning the great Xiang Yu of Chu. Mean, violent, vain and distrustful the Chu king undoubtedly was, declared the Grand Historian, while all the time depicting a dazzling hero for whom nothing less than a climax of high tragedy would suffice, plus – as he warmed to his task – some of the purplest passages in the whole of the Shiji.

      In late 203 BC the mutual insults gave way to ceasefire overtures. Both rulers agreed to withdraw; Xiang Yu surrendered Liu Bang’s family; and the empire was tentatively divided along the north–south line of a canal between the Huai and Yellow rivers. Xiang Yu’s Chu retained all to the east, Liu Bang’s Han all to the west. A relieved Xiang Yu at last pulled back. But an encouraged Liu Bang went after him, harrying the Chu van and picking off stragglers. What should have been a victorious homecoming for Xiang Yu’s men began to assume the appearance of an undisciplined rout. Liu Bang pressed ever harder and his forces grew by the day. Lukewarm supporters flocked to his standard on the promise of fiefs that he might now actually be able to deliver. So did deserters from the disillusioned ranks of the enemy.

      The last great battle was fought at a place called Gaixia in northern Anhui. Outnumbered three to one, Xiang Yu’s forces were finally overwhelmed and he himself surrounded, ‘his soldiers being now few and supplies exhausted’. That night Xiang Yu could not sleep, reports Sima Qian. From the Han encampments came the sound of music. They were singing the songs of Chu. Was it possible, asked Xiang Yu, that so many men of Chu had already defected?

      Then he rose in the night and drank within the curtains of his tent. With him were the beautiful Lady Yü, who then enjoyed his favour and went everywhere with him, and his famous steed ‘Dapple’, which he always rode. Xiang Yu, now filled with passionate sorrow, began to sing sadly. [His song was of how the times were against him, of Dapple’s exhaustion and of what would become of ‘Yü, my Yü’.] He sang the song several times and Lady Yü joined with him. Tears streamed down his face, while all those about him wept and were unable to lift their eyes from the ground. Then he mounted his horse and with 800 brave riders beneath his banner, rode into the night, broke through the encirclement to the south, and galloped away.¹⁰

      The chase resumed. By the time Xiang Yu reached the Huai River, his 800 men were reduced to a hundred. As he approached the Yangzi, they were down to twenty-eight. Promising them three last victories, he was as good as his word. Thrice they charged against impossible odds and each time they broke through the Han ranks. It was Heaven which was destroying him, said Xiang Yu, and ‘no fault of my own in the use of arms’.

      On the Yangzi – it was just west of Nanjing – a boat was waiting. Safety beckoned. It was from across the river in erstwhile Wu that he had set forth eight years earlier. He still had supporters there; he could yet rule there. But ‘how can I face them again?’ he asked. ‘How could I not feel shame in my heart?’ So saying, he dismounted, and presenting ‘Dapple’ to the kindly boatman, turned back and strode on foot towards the Han host.

      In the final scuffle Xiang Yu killed ‘several hundred’, according to Sima Qian, while suffering ‘a dozen wounds’. Faint and bleeding, he then recognised an old acquaintance who was now a Han cavalry officer. His last words were spoken soldier to soldier.

      ‘I have heard that Han has offered a reward of a thousand catties¹¹ of gold and a fief of ten thousand households for my life,’ said Xiang Yu. ‘So I will do you a favour!’ And with that he cut his own throat and died.¹²

      JADED MONARCHS

      On 28 February 202 BC, with Xiang Yu dead and Chu subdued, Liu Bang of Pei ‘assumed the position of Supreme Emperor’. At this point in his narrative Sima Qian ceases calling him ‘the king of Han’ (‘Liu Bang’ and ‘Lord of Pei’ had long since been dropped) and switches to his posthumous imperial title of Gaozu. History would adopt this title exclusively, commemorating him as Han Gaozu, ‘the Han Great Progenitor’ (or sometimes Han Gaodi, ‘the Han Progenitor-Emperor’). The first commoner to rise to the dizzy heights of emperor, he would be the last for 1,500 years. Founding a dynasty from such obscurity was no small achievement, and the Grand Historian, writing at a time when the strongest of all the Han emperors occupied the throne, acknowledged a remarkable lineage by hailing its imperial progenitor.

      Yet