The Warrior Who Almost Ruled the World
The most feared warrior in Chinese history — brilliant in battle, catastrophic in politics — whose stubborn nobility cost him an empire.
Xiang Yu was over eight feet tall, impossibly strong, and born to command. He watched the First Emperor cross his kingdom and declared: 'I can replace him.' At twenty-four, with his uncle Xiang Liang, he raised eight thousand men in Wu and began the revolt that would destroy the Qin Empire. At Julu he crossed the Yellow River, destroyed four hundred thousand Qin soldiers, and became the supreme military figure of his age. But he could not govern. He alienated allies with broken promises, executed advisors who gave honest counsel, and drove Fan Zeng away in suspicion — the man who saw all his mistakes coming. At the Hongmen Banquet he failed to kill Liu Bang and lost the empire in a single evening. Four years later he stood at Gaixia, his army starving, surrounded, betrayed. He charged through the Han lines one last time and died by his own sword rather than be captured. 'It is not that Heaven failed me,' he said, 'it is that I failed myself.'