Hannibal and Xiang Yu , tragical heroes in alike fate

There are so many coincidences in the history.Fortunately, I happened to find one!

Hannibal Barca ��247-183BC��and Xiang Yu ���233-202BC��, two military genius that lived in the same epoch and separately played a key role in the history of Rome and China, actually have similar destinies. Let��s see in this historian magic.

In case some freinds here don��t know much about their background, first let me give you some link

Hannibal: http://www.livius.org/ha-hd/hannibal/hannibal.html

Xiang Yu: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Han/chu-han.html

1.       They both belonged to military aristocrat and were descendants of a famous general in their country.

2.       They both grew up in a passion of national enmity and hatred.

For Hannibal, it came from the bitterness of Carthage��s shameful loss at the 1^st Punic War.

For Xiang Yu, it hailed from the conquest of his motherland, Chu, by Qin during the Unification War.(http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Han/qin.html)

3.       They emerged to be a noticeable figure as early as they were still at their twenties. Hannibal succeeded his father��s post as the Commander of Spain through election when he was 26.

The 24 years old Xiang Yu followed his uncle Xiang Liang rising up against the Qin regime and gained his fame by killing the Governor of Kuai Xi County at the beginning of their operation.

4.       They both had accomplished the impossible missions and created military wonders in history. In most circumstance, the quantity of enemies was meaningless to these geniuses in battlefield. They were able to achieved the brilliant victory even they were badly outnumbered by their enemies. Their achievements are second to none in their times:

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Battle of Ju Lu ��¹֮�� http://www.oxford.com.cn/Article_Show.asp?ArticleID=1547), Xiang Yu��s troops less than 20,000 men defeated the so called tiger-and-wolf-like Qin army of 200,000 men. It has alway been a classical example of battle in Chinese History.

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Battle of Peng Cheng ����֮��: Xiang Yu deployed his cavalry to launch a surprise attack to his rival of emperor crown, Liu Bang and his allies�� troops that was at advantage of number. Though it was a 30,000 Vs 560,000 fight, yet incredibly, Xiang was the winner.

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Battle of Trasimene lake: Despite the exhaustion and big loss during the long march across the Alps, Hannibal managed to annihilated the Roman Legion that two times larger than his army and killed the commander.

 Battle of Cannae: Hannibal got his respectable status after this campaign. His 50,000 mixed troops almost destroyed all the Roman elite force (80,000 plus men) at a time, pushing the Roman Republic to the edge of collapse. The word ��Cannae�� even became a military term after the event. This battle is also a case-study subject in the western military textbook.

To be continued