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Tian Dan
Qi commander who held Jimo after Yan overran Qi, broke the besiegers with a night charge of fire-tailed oxen, and recovered more than seventy cities
At dusk on a hilltop, a large tent stands open with a table holding a map marked with small stones inside, a saddled horse tethered outside, and fire stands burning; campfires dot the river plain below, and one tiny sentry stands on the slope.
Tian Dan, a distant kinsman of the Qi kings, was an obscure market official in Linzi. When the Yan general Yue Yi overran Qi in 284 BC, Tian fled to Anping and had his kinsmen cut short their axle ends and sheathe them in iron, so that they escaped when the town fell; he then held Jimo, where the defenders made him general. When King Hui took the Yan throne, Tian's rumours led him to replace Yue Yi with Qi Jie, then tied blades to the horns of oxen and oil-soaked reeds to their tails, set them alight and drove them into the Yan camp at night, routing the army and killing Qi Jie. Qi regained over seventy cities, King Xiang returned to Linzi, and Tian became Lord of Anping. The Shiji says Zhao later traded three towns for his services, and he became chancellor of Zhao in 264 BC. Sima Qian's verdict on him is that war is joined by the regular and won by the unexpected.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; restored Qi in 279 BCE