The Han Empire: A Chronicle of Turmoil

Open the yellowed pages of Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Han, and the “Rogue Emperor” in the Basic Annals of Emperor Gaozu of Han, the “Hegemon-King of Western Chu” in the Basic Annals of Xiang Yu, and the “Legend of the God of War” in the Biographies of the Marquis of Huaiyin leap off the page. Rooted in official histories, this book brings to life the founding history of the Han dynasty: Liu Bang’s rise from a lowlife in Pei County to the founding emperor, the schemes and power struggles of the Chu-Han Contention, and Han Xin’s military legend.

Far from dry historical texts, this book reveals the propaganda campaign behind “the Red Emperor slays the white serpent” and the absurd truth behind the story of escaping the Hongmen Banquet by pretending to relieve oneself. It recreates the bloody battlefield where Xiang Yu’s thirty thousand cavalry routed a coalition army of five hundred and sixty thousand, and unpacks the imperial arts behind Liu Bang’s ruthless Machiavellianism. With humor reminiscent of Those Things in the Ming Dynasty, the author takes you through four hundred turbulent years to see how a band of rough-and-ready “gangsters” rewrote history, revealing the secrets of human nature and the twists of fate behind the rise of the Han dynasty.