Zhang Liang

Also known as Zi Zifang

Zhang Liang, courtesy name Zifang, was the son and grandson of men who had served five rulers of the state of Han as chancellor. After Qin destroyed Han he spent the family fortune on finding an assassin, who struck at the touring First Emperor at Bolangsha with an iron club but hit the wrong carriage. The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) says an old man on a bridge at Xiapi gave him a book on the art of war. Joining Liu Bang at the end of Qin, he got his lord safely away from the Hongmen feast and proposed allying with Ying Bu and Peng Yue and relying on Han Xin against Xiang Yu. Offered thirty thousand households in 201 BC, he asked only for Liu, where he had first met Liu Bang, and became its marquis. In later years he practised Daoist fasting, and he died in 186 BC. Liu Bang said of him that he devised strategies in the tent that won battles a thousand li away.