Usurping Jin and Founding Qi

The Rebellion of the Eight Princes drained the Western Jin Dynasty of its strength, while its finest troops were wiped out in the civil war. In the winter of 304, the first year of Yongxing under the Western Jin, Liu Yuan of the Xiongnu raised an uprising against the Jin in Lishi and declared himself King of Han. Bingzhou suffered famine year after year, and the dead lay everywhere. Sima Teng, governor of Bingzhou, had no way to stop Liu Yuan, so he decided to lead twenty thousand soldiers and civilians east across the Taihang Mountains to Jizhou in search of food. This band of refugees was the precursor to the “Begging-to-Live Army.” Those two words laid bare the refugees’ humility and resilience in a world torn by chaos: they asked for nothing more than a chance to survive. And the protagonist was among them…