Li Guang
This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (October 2021) |
Li Guang | |
---|---|
Born | c. 184 BC |
Died | 119 BC (aged 64-65) |
Other names | "Flying General" ( |
Occupation | Military general |
Children |
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Li Guang (184-119 BC[1]) was a Chinese military general of the Western Han dynasty. Nicknamed "Flying General" by the Xiongnu, he fought primarily in the campaigns against the nomadic Xiongnu tribes to the north of China. He was known to the Xiongnu as a tough opponent when it came to fortress defense, and his presence was sometimes enough for the Xiongnu to abort a siege.
Li Guang committed suicide shortly after the Battle of Mobei in 119 BC. He was blamed for failing to arrive at the battlefield in time (after getting lost in the desert), creating a gap in the encirclement and allowing Ichise Chanyu to escape after a confrontation between Wei Qing and the Chanyu's main force, which the Han army narrowly managed to defeat. Refusing to accept the humiliation of a court-martial, Li Guang killed himself.
Li Guang belonged to the Longxi branch of the Li clan (隴西
Life[edit]
According to Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, Li Guang was a man of great build, with long arms and good archery skills, able to shoot an arrow deeply into a stone (which resembles the shape of a crouching tiger) on one occasion.[2] At the same time, like his contemporaries Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, he was a caring and well-respected general who earned the respect of his soldiers. He also earned the favor of Emperor Wen, who said of him: "If he had been born in the time of Emperor Gaozu, he would have been given a fief of ten thousand households (Chinese:
Li Guang first distinguished himself during the Rebellion of the Seven States, where he served under the Grand General Zhou Yafu. However, Emperor Jing was unhappy that he had accepted a seal given by Liu Wu, Prince of Liang, Emperor Jing's brother; Emperor Jing had been wary of the Prince of Liang, as Liu Wu had ambitions to place himself as Emperor Jing's successor, over Emperor Jing's sons. This stance was also supported by Empress Dowager Dou, their mother. Thus, Li did not get promoted to a marquisate despite his anti-rebellion achievement.
As the border of Hebei was always subject to constant attacks by the Xiongnu, Li Guang's valorous temper was deemed a good fit, and he was assigned to defend against them.[3]
However, Li Guang's late military career was constantly haunted by repeated incidents of what would be regarded as jinxed with "bad luck" by later scholars. He had a nasty tendency of losing direction during mobilisations; in field battles, he was often outnumbered and surrounded by superior enemies. While Li Guang's fame attracted much of his enemies' attention, Li Guang's troops relative lack of discipline and his lack of strategic planning often put him and his regiments in awkward situations. Li Guang himself narrowly escaped capture after his army was annihilated during an offensive campaign at Yanmen in 129 BC, and was stripped of official titles and demoted to commoner status with fellow defeated general Gongsun Ao (
During the Battle of Mobei in 119 BC, an old but still enthusiastic Li Guang insisted Emperor Wu to promise him a vanguard position, but the emperor had secretly messaged generalissimo Wei Qing to not let Li lead the vanguard due to his infamy of "bad fortune". Wei Qing then assigned Li Guang to combine forces with Zhao Shiqi (赵食其/
In popular culture[edit]
Li Guang is mentioned by his nickname in Wang Changling's seven-character quatrain "On the Frontier" (
In the Imperial Japanese gunka Teki wa Ikuman, the song's lyrics reference Li Guang's ability to pierce a stone with an arrow as an example of determination regardless of difficulty.[5]
References[edit]
Citations[edit]
- ^ 4th year of the Yuan'shou era of Emperor Wu's reign. The year corresponds to 12 Nov 120 BCE to 1 Nov 119 BCE in the proleptic Julian calendar.
- ^ Man, John (2019). Barbarians at the Wall The First Nomadic Empire and the Making of China (ebook). Transworld. ISBN 9781473554191. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
- ^ Brown, Kerry (2017). Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography (general history). Berkshire Publishing Group. p. 276. ISBN 9781933782614. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
- ^ Yang, 1993, p. 83-84
- ^ "Thousands of enemies may come (Teki wa ikuman,
敵 は幾 万 ) 1890s". Retrieved December 9, 2019.
Bibliography[edit]
- Joseph P Yap. Wars With The Xiongnu - A translation From Zizhi Tongjian, Chapters 3-4. AuthorHouse (2009). ISBN 978-1-4490-0604-4.[self-published source?]
- Yang, Jing Huey (1993). The study of Wang Changling’s seven-character quatrain (Master of Arts dissertation, University of British Columbia). Available from the UBC library database. Retrieved from https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0087346.
- Theobald, Ulrich (2011). Li Guang
李 廣 ; Cang Xiuliang倉 修 良 , ed. (1996). Hanshu cidian漢書 辭典 (Jinan: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe), 296. Retrieved 13 January 2022.