Royals › Empress / Consort
Consort Yu
The favored Lady Yu who answered Xiang Yu's song at Gaixia and became central to the later Farewell My Concubine tradition.
Mural of the event “Chu-Han Contention”, which this person took part in.
After Qin fell, the unified regime collapsed into a power vacuum. Xiang Yu styled himself Hegemon of Western Chu and enfeoffed lords broadly, while Liu Bang named Han Xin general and slipped through the secret route via Chencang, igniting a long contest between the two camps.
Also known as Beauty Yu · Xichu Bawang Fei · Lady Yu
- Roles
- Empress / Consort
The Shiji identifies a favored woman named Yu who regularly accompanied Xiang Yu. When his army was surrounded at Gaixia and heard songs of Chu on every side, Xiang Yu sang in grief and Lady Yu answered him as those in the tent wept. The source does not record her later fate; drama and literature subsequently developed the farewell into the tragedy known as Farewell My Concubine.
Life and times
- UnknownBorn
Hanactive in 202 BCE - 206 BCEChu-Han Contention
Took partLiu Bang's coalition defeated Xiang Yu at Gaixia, ending the Chu-Han struggle and clearing the way for the Han dynasty.- Xiang Yu Surrounded at Gaixia202 BCESurrounded at Gaixia, Xiang Yu heard Chu songs on every side, exchanged a tearful song with Lady Yu, and broke out with more than eight hundred riders.
- Xiang Yu Surrounded at Gaixia
- UnknownDied
Works
Literature · Poetry1- Song in Reply to the King of XiangHanReply to Xiang Yu ascribed to Lady Yu at Gaixia, root of the Farewell My Concubine story
