Campaigners › Frontier Generals
Zhao Chongguo
Western Han general who fought his way out of a Xiongnu encirclement in 99 BC and, past seventy, subdued the Qiang by settling soldier-farmers along the Huang River
On a desert ridge, a rammed-earth watchtower and a long wall run across sand and rock toward the distance; a sentry stands on the tower with his back turned, smoke rises from a far beacon tower, and a small camel caravan crosses the sand at the right.
Also known as Zi Wengsun · Zhao Weng Sun
Zhao Chongguo, courtesy name Wengsun, came from Shanggui in Longxi and entered the palace guard as a skilled mounted archer from a frontier family. In 99 BC, when the Xiongnu surrounded Li Guangli's army, he led a hundred men to break out, taking over twenty wounds, and Emperor Wu promoted him. Under Emperor Zhao he crushed a Di rising and fought the Xiongnu, becoming General of the Rear, and for helping enthrone Emperor Xuan he was made Marquis of Yingping. When the Qiang rebelled in 61 BC he was over seventy but asked to go to Jincheng himself, saying that hearing a hundred times is not as good as seeing once. In repeated memorials he argued for sending the cavalry home and keeping ten thousand foot soldiers to farm the Huangzhong valley; the Qiang submitted the next year. He died in 52 BC aged eighty-six with the posthumous name Zhuang, and his portrait was hung in the Qilin Pavilion with ten others.
Life and times
Dates 137 BCE–52 BCE