The story of the brilliant and complicated character Xiang Yu (232-202 B.) concerns his meteoric rise from a man with "no inch of territory" to a great conqueror, and his rivalry with and defeat by Liu Bang, founder of the Han dynasty in 206 BC. The details are recorded in the Historical Records of the Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian. The sketch tells of his arrogant, impetuous character which led to his demise.

Xiang Yu was from a noble family in the former State of Chu which had ceased to exist when Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor, unified the country. While a peasant rebellion led by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang was assailing Qin rule, Xiang Yu killed the prefect of Wu (the present-day Xuzhou in Jiangzu Province) and organised troops to join the uprising.

About this same time, Liu Bang, a petty official in the Qin administration who had come from a peasant family, led an uprising in today's Jiangsu province. After the two leaders of the peasant rebellion were killed, armies led by Xiang Yu and Liu Bang became the main forces battling to overthrow Qin. The two fought together for a time under the banner of King Huai of Chu, the former King of the Chu's grandson who had been found herding sheep and set up as emperor.

In 208 BC while Xiang Yu and Liu Bang were making plans to capture the Qin capital Xianyang, an urgent call for aid came from the city of Julu, which had been under siege for nearly a month by Qin troops. A large army was sent to relieve Julu with Xiang Yu as second in command under the veteran statesman Song Yi.

When the troops got to Anyang, Song Yi ordered them to stop. He wanted to wait till the Qin army wore itself out taking the city and then to attack. They stayed there 46 days in cold wet weather and the troops were short of food. Xiang Yu wanted to go ahead. He didn't feel they'd gain any military advantage and was furious with Song Yi for ignoring the suffering of the soldiers.

One morning during a conference with Song Yi, Xiang Yu jumped up and killed him. The generals were awed into submission and elected him their leader.

A portion of Xiang Yu's army failed to raise the siege, so he sent his entire force into battle. When they had crossed the Zhang River he ordered all the boats sunk and, after a three-day supply of food had been prepared, all cooking pots smashed, giving his troops no choice but to go forward. Today, "smash pots and sink boats" is still an idiom in Chinese.

After Xiang Yu's troops had raised the siege and the Qin general had surrendered to him, he went on to conquer a vast territory covering five former states. He also carved up the Qin empire in fiefs to his supporters and, giving himself the title of Overlord of Conqueror, banished King Huai of Chu.

In the meantime, Liu Bang, with fewer forces, fought his way westward through Hangu Pass to take the Qin capital, thereby also gaining a claim to be emperor. This was followed by four years of fighting between him and Xiang Yu, complicated by the fact that the latter, homesick for Chu, had made the tactical error of withdrawing from territory west of the pass.

By the end of 203 BC many of the lesser kings and barons had deserted Xiang Yu. One night, surrounded by Liu Bang's forces and low on supplies, he was sitting in his tent with his favourite concubine Lay Yu when he heard the sound of songs from Chu, his own homeland, coming from the besiegers. "Can it be true that Han has conquered Chu, that they have so many men of Chu with them?" he asked. With this, another phrase entered the Chinese language: "Chu songs on four sides," meaning to be besieged from all sides. Overwhelmed with sadness, Xiang Yu sat late into the night drinking with the lady Yu and singing a melancholy song with his own words:

My strength uprooted mountains,
My spirit overstepped the world;
But the times are against me,
And my horse can gallop no more.
When he can gallop on more
What can I do?
And what is to become of Lady Yu?

He sang it over and over again till tears ran down his retainers' cheeks. Then he rushed out of the tent and with the 800 men left with him dashed through the lines till he reached the Wujiang River. Heaven was against him, he said: it was of no use to cross the river. Among his attackers he met an old friend. He offered him his head, on which there was a high price, and cut him his head.

The Chinese traditional opera Xiang Yu the Conqueror Bids Farewell to his Concubine is based on this incident. There is no record of what happened to Lady Yu. One legend has it that after him, she sang a song which echoed the line about Chu songs and killed herself.

Legend adapted from original material reproduced courtesy of Shanghai on Internet