Heroes of Chu and Han: The Ultimate Showdown Between Rogues and Heroes

When Qin lost the realm, all under Heaven vied to claim it.

He was a rogue.

A low-ranking pavilion chief from Sishui, he slept off his drink without paying his debts. When he missed his deadline escorting convicts, he simply swerved his way up Mount Mangdang.

The slickness of the streets, the cunning of the underworld, and a shameless, ruthless streak seeped into his very bones.

When he saw Qin Shi Huang on tour, he squeezed out a sour remark: “A real man should be like that!”

And he was a hero.

A descendant of Xiang Yan, strong enough to lift a great cauldron, he was born to be a god of the battlefield.

He burned his boats and won a legendary victory, frightening the lords into crawling on their knees into his tent.

When he saw the First Emperor’s carriage, he looked down on everyone and declared, “He can be replaced!”

When the rogue was the first to enter Xianyang and seize the spoils of Qin’s destruction, he panicked.

Because behind him, the undefeated hero was coming with an army of four hundred thousand.

At the Feast at Hong Gate, he fled by pretending to need the latrine.

When the realm was divided among the lords, he was banished to remote Hanzhong.

At the Battle of Pengcheng, Xiang Yu’s thirty thousand cavalry routed a coalition of five hundred and sixty thousand. He even shoved his own children out of his carriage.

But he survived.

A rogue who had clawed his way out of the mud knew better than anyone: only the living could turn the tables.

He began using the most venomous schemes under Heaven to drive a wedge between Xiang Yu and his most loyal ministers.

He showed the cruelest heart of all when Xiang Yu boiled his father alive and he said, “Save me a cup of the broth.”

He kept smiling until the very end, until Xiang Yu stood by the Wu River with a boat that could carry only one man.

At that moment, Xiang Yu remembered what he had once said:

“I don’t want the times to make heroes. I want heroes to make the times.”

At last, the hand gripping his sword relaxed.

The sword rose and fell, and an era came to an end.

Is it simply that the victor becomes king and the loser a bandit? No.

This was the ultimate showdown between a rogue and a hero.

A life-and-death struggle between two ways of living, two convictions, and two fates.