The Overlord Takes Off His Armour

Introduction

It tells the Battle of Gaixia from Xiang Yu's side and includes a farewell to Consort Yu

The Overlord Takes Off His Armour is a large martial piece for pipa that, like Ambush from Ten Sides, depicts the Battle of Gaixia, but from the side of the defeated Xiang Yu. Its earliest surviving score, like that of its companion piece, is in the pipa collection compiled by Hua Qiuping in 1818. Common versions run to more than ten sections, among them the camp drums, mustering the generals, the battle at Gaixia, the songs of Chu, the farewell to Consort Yu and breaking out of the siege. The Pudong school plays it as a set of variations on one main melody that drives the story forward. The musicologist Tian Qing notes that it dwells more on the people in the war than on the fighting itself.