the Fourfold Encounters of Records Grand Historian

Kings and Nobles, Are They Born? focuses on one chapter of the Records of the Grand Historian: the Basic Annals of Emperor Gaozu of Han.¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han dynasty, began his career as a minor village official in Sishui. Rising from obscurity, he was thrust onto the historical stage amid the turbulent collapse of the Qin dynasty. The Grand Historian, in composing his biography, did not resort to empty talk of a divinely mandated destiny. Instead, he painstakingly portrayed a man of the marketplace - fond of wine and women, yet broad-minded and generous - and showed how such a man emerged as the ultimate victor among the contending powers of his age.Liu Bang was not a born hero, yet he possessed an unerring instinct for recognizing and employing talent. He seemed often to be defeated, yet always managed to turn the tide in moments of desperation. He was a consummate performer - capable of both stooping and standing tall - who transformed his youthful sigh, "A great man ought to be like this!" into the triumphant reality of "My might has spread across the realm, and now I return to my homeland.""Are kings and nobles born to their station?" Liu Bang, a commoner who took up his sword and won the realm, shattered the iron law of hereditary aristocratic rule. His rise was not a matter of Heaven's favor, but a convergence of circumstance, connections, performance, and vision. When he struck the zither at the Pei Palace and sang the Great Wind Song, the tears streaming down his face carried both the exaltation of triumph and a profound awareness of fate's capriciousness - and this is precisely the most moving historical resonance that the Grand Historian bequeathed to later generations.¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿"¿¿¿¿¿¿¿"¿¿¿¿¿¿¿"¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿"¿¿¿¿"¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿"¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿--¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿Tan Musheng is a historian, writer, and Ph.D. candidate in modern Chinese history at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. A former senior editor at The Economic Observer and co-founder of Interface Media, he later founded the New Asia Humanities College. His lecture series on Chinese history has garnered millions of listeners online. He is the author of The Empress's Flight West and The Witchcraft Scandal That Shook Chang'an.¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿"¿¿¿¿¿¿"¿¿¿¿¿"¿¿¿¿¿¿¿"¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿