On a snowy night in Handan, two hostages slept side by side. Ying Zheng's words, “I will never attack Yan,” became the warmest ember in the heart of Crown Prince Dan of Yan.
But as the King of Qin pointed his sword at the Six States, that old promise burned to ash amid his ambition to unify the realm. Dan returned to Qin as a hostage and endured contempt and humiliation. On the night he escaped back to Yan, he staked the survival of his homeland on Jing Ke's dagger in the bitter winds by the Yi River.
The hidden dagger flashed, but its cold light failed to pierce the Qin king's robes. Instead, it ignited the flames of war in Yan. Desperate to survive, King Xi of Yan personally had his own son's head cut off. The neck that had once shared half a barley cake with the King of Qin became a sacrifice offered to the powerful state of Qin.
But a plea for peace made in a pool of blood could never stop the iron cavalry of Qin. In 222 BC, the flames of war in Liaodong were extinguished, and Yan faded into a smudge of ink on the map. From a youthful oath to swords drawn against each other, from an all-or-nothing gamble to death and the fall of a nation, this struggle, tangled up in personal grudges and the fate of their homelands, became the most tragic sound of the weak being crushed beneath the wheels of history.
This tale of a deep bond between brothers turning into a fight to the death ultimately became a sigh in the pages of history.
