李廣

After the lunch with my friends, I actually kept thinking of Li Guăng (李廣) - the "flying general" (飛將軍) of the Han dynasty.

I read the story of Li Guăng when I was a primary school student.

In spite of his excellent archery skill and was highly praised by contemporary people, the military career of Li Guăng could hardly be called successful. When he first joined the army (probably at the age of 18 or 20), the Han Empire was under the reign of Liu Heng (劉恆), who once commented that if Li Guăng had been born in the time of Emperor Gaozu (漢高祖), he would have become a grand duke without any difficulty.

But no. It was not a good time because Emperor Wen (漢文帝) preferred to have peace with the Huns (匈奴), and, as a young and energetic general, Li Guăng had no way to win his honor.

The irony is, many years later, when Liu Che (劉徹) became the emperor and decided to put up campaigns against the Huns, he considered Li Guăng too old to play any important role in the battles. (Li was around 60 by that time.) After all, Emperor Wu (漢武帝) had Wei Qing (衛青) and Huo Qubing (霍去病) - excellent generals at the prime time of their career.

Li Guăng committed suicide, at the age of around 65, after leading his army astray in a battle - he was a subordinate of Wei Qing at that time.