Bai Qi

Also known as Gongsun Qi

Bai Qi of Mei served King Zhaoxiang of Qin. In 293 BC he crushed the combined armies of Han and Wei at Yique, where the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) counts 240,000 heads taken, and was promoted to commandant of the state and then to grand director. In 279 and 278 BC he invaded Chu, took Yan and the capital Ying and burned Yiling, forcing Chu to move its court to Chen, and was enfeoffed as Lord Wu'an. At Changping in 260 BC, secretly given supreme command, he surrounded the Zhao army for forty-six days until its general Zhao Kuo was killed, and the surrendered soldiers, said to number 400,000, were buried alive. He later fell out with the minister Fan Ju and, pleading illness, refused to lead a fresh attack on Handan; reduced to a commoner and sent into exile, he was ordered to kill himself at Duyou. The Shiji says the people of Qin pitied him and held sacrifices for him in their villages.