The Tongjian on the Founding of the Han

The founding of the Han dynasty (202 BCE) is one of the most studied episodes in the Zizhi Tongjian, and Sima Guang uses it to make a point that runs through the entire work: systems matter more than heroes. Liu Bang was not the most talented general, the most educated ruler, or the most virtuous person in the competition. He won because he built a system that could absorb mistakes, delegate effectively, and learn from failure. His rival Xiang Yu was brilliant in almost every way that Liu Bang was not, and he lost because his system was a one-man show.

Two Men, Two Models

The Chu-Han War (206 to 202 BCE) was a four-year contest between Xiang Yu, the aristocratic warrior-king of Chu, and Liu Bang, the peasant-born former Qin bureaucrat. The Tongjian follows the campaign in detail, and the contrast between the two leaders is the central narrative thread.

Xiang Yu was a military prodigy. He won battle after battle through personal bravery, tactical innovation, and sheer force of personality. His troops worshipped him. His enemies feared him. He came from a noble Chu family with generations of military tradition. On paper, he should have won easily.

Liu Bang was none of these things. He was born a commoner in Pei County. He had no military training before the revolts. He was not physically imposing. He drank, he womanized, he cursed at subordinates. What he had was an instinct for finding talented people, delegating to them, and letting them do their jobs without micromanaging their methods.

The Talent Advantage

Liu Bang’s defining strength was his ability to attract and retain talent. His three most important advisors were Han Xin, Zhang Liang, and Xiao He. Han Xin was one of the greatest military commanders in Chinese history. Zhang Liang was a strategic genius who had originally planned to assassinate Qin Shi Huangdi. Xiao He was an administrative powerhouse who kept the logistics running.

Each of these men had at some point been available to Xiang Yu. Han Xin had actually served in Xiang Yu’s army before defecting to Liu Bang, because Xiang Yu refused to promote him. Zhang Liang had connections to the Chu aristocracy but chose Liu Bang because he saw a leader who would listen. Xiao He was a former Qin official who recognized that Liu Bang, for all his roughness, had the temperament of a ruler.

The Hongmen Banquet: The Near-Death Experience

The Tongjian gives extensive coverage to the Hongmen Banquet (鸿门宴, 206 BCE), a diplomatic meeting that nearly became Liu Bang’s execution. Xiang Yu’s advisor Fan Zeng had identified Liu Bang as the real threat and urged Xiang Yu to kill him at the banquet. Liu Bang arrived with gifts, displayed submission, and relied on his own advisor Zhang Liang and the intercession of Xiang Yu’s uncle Xiang Bo to survive.

The episode is important in the Tongjian because it illustrates a recurring principle: the ability to swallow pride in the short term is a survival skill. Liu Bang humiliated himself at Hongmen. He flattered, he submitted, he made himself appear harmless. Xiang Yu, who valued personal honor above strategic calculation, let him go. Fan Zeng, watching Liu Bang escape, reportedly said: “We shall all become his captives.”

The Hongmen Banquet is the moment the Chu-Han War was decided, though it would take four more years of fighting for the result to become visible. Xiang Yu had the power to end the competition and chose not to, because the method required was beneath his dignity. Liu Bang had the humility to survive and the patience to win later. The banquet is a case study in how personal pride can override strategic logic at the decisive moment.

The System Liu Bang Built

After defeating Xiang Yu and founding the Han dynasty, Liu Bang (now Emperor Gaozu) faced the question that every conqueror faces: how to govern what you have won. His solution was a hybrid system that drew on both Qin’s administrative efficiency and the Zhou dynasty’s decentralized feudal model. He kept Qin’s commandery (郡, jun) system for the core territory but granted semi-autonomous kingdoms (王国, wang guo) to his allies and former rivals in the periphery.

This compromise was not ideal. It planted the seeds of the rebellion problem that would plague the Han for decades, as the kingdoms accumulated power and challenged the central government. But it was a workable compromise that bought stability in the short term while the new dynasty established its legitimacy. Liu Bang understood that perfection was the enemy of functionality.

The Tongjian credits Liu Bang with three key decisions that defined the early Han: reducing taxes to one-fifteenth of agricultural output (far below Qin’s rates), demobilizing much of the army to return men to farming, and simplifying the legal code to remove the most draconian Qin punishments. Each decision was a direct reversal of Qin policy, and each was designed to give the population relief after decades of war and tyranny.

What Sima Guang Wanted Rulers to Learn

The founding of the Han is not just a story in the Tongjian. It is a lesson. Sima Guang wanted the Song emperor who read his work to understand that the difference between Xiang Yu and Liu Bang was not talent. It was system. A ruler who builds institutions that outlast his personal involvement creates a dynasty. A ruler who makes everything depend on his personal judgment creates a single-generation enterprise that dies with him.

The specific lessons Sima Guang draws from the Chu-Han War are: delegate to people more skilled than yourself in their domains; reward generously to retain talent; swallow pride when survival requires it; reverse the previous regime’s harshest policies to win popular support; and build a hybrid system that combines the best of available models rather than imposing an ideological purity that the situation cannot sustain.

For more on the Han dynasty’s development, see the parent article on 1,300 years of statecraft and the Zizhi Tongjian pillar page. The Warring States background that produced the world Liu Bang and Xiang Yu competed in is covered in the chapter on the Warring States period, and the Qin collapse that created the opportunity is in the chapter on the Qin dynasty’s end.

The Empress Lu Problem: Succession and Power

Liu Bang died in 195 BCE, and his successor Liu Ying (Emperor Hui) was weak and dominated by his mother, Empress Lu. The Tongjian covers the Empress Lu regency in detail, treating it as a case study in what happens when succession planning fails. Liu Bang had spent his final years trying to ensure that his chosen heir would inherit a stable throne, but he had not accounted for the political ambition of his wife.

Empress Lu seized control of the government after Liu Bang’s death, placed her relatives in key military and administrative positions, and effectively ruled as regent for fifteen years. She persecuted Liu Bang’s other consorts and their children, most notoriously mutilating the Consort Qi and presenting her to Emperor Hui as a “human pig.” The emperor, upon seeing what his mother had done, reportedly fell ill and refused to govern, spending his remaining years in drink and despair.

Sima Guang’s commentary on this period draws a clear lesson: a founder who does not solve the succession problem has not finished founding. Liu Bang built the system, won the war, and established the dynasty. He did not solve the question of what happens when his biological heir is incapable and a politically ambitious family member is available to step in. The result was fifteen years of factional violence under Empress Lu, followed by a coup by Liu Bang’s old allies after her death.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was Liu Bang really a peasant, or is that a later embellishment?

He was a commoner, but not destitute. His father owned some land, and Liu Bang held a minor position as a village constable (亭长, ting zhang) under the Qin. He was low-status but not outside the system entirely. The point of his background is not that he was destitute but that he was born without aristocratic privilege, which made his rise to emperor unprecedented.

How does the Tongjian’s account of the Chu-Han War compare to the Shiji?

Both cover the same events, but the Shiji presents the material biographically (separate chapters for Xiang Yu, Liu Bang, Han Xin, Zhang Liang, etc.) while the Tongjian presents it chronologically. The Tongjian is better for understanding how events in different theaters interacted, while the Shiji is better for understanding individual characters’ complete arcs. For a direct comparison, see the chapter on Sima Qian vs Sima Guang.

Did Liu Bang actually say the famous quote about using other people’s talent?

The Shiji records a victory speech in which Liu Bang attributed his success to his ability to use three men (Han Xin, Zhang Liang, Xiao He) while Xiang Yu had one capable advisor (Fan Zeng) and could not use him. The exact wording may be Sima Qian’s literary construction, but the sentiment is consistent with everything else we know about both men.

Why did Liu Bang later turn against his own generals?

After founding the dynasty, Liu Bang became suspicious of the very generals who helped him win, particularly Han Xin, who was eventually executed on Empress Lu’s orders. The Tongjian treats this as a separate lesson: the trust that enables collaborative conquest does not survive the establishment of centralized power. The founding ruler’s paranoia about potential rivals becomes a recurring pattern in Chinese dynastic history.