When Rebels Become Kings – ending the Qin empire

209 BC. Chen Sheng 陈胜 and his deputy Wu Guang 吴广were ordinary military captains given an ordinary Qin assignment: march 900 conscripts north to Yuyang 渔阳 and help hold the frontier against the Xiongnu. Then the weather decided otherwise. Storms flooded the roads. The deadline slipped past. Under Qin law, late arrival meant the death sentence.

Chen Sheng and Wu Guang did the maths. Better to die fighting the regime than hand themselves over to it. So they mutinied.

They needed a story that would make men follow them. The story they chose was pure theatre. They claimed that the rightful heir, Prince Fusu 扶苏, had been forced to suicide by a forged edict, and that the pleasure-loving younger brother Hu Hai 胡亥 now sat on the throne. They also claimed that the famous Chu general Xiang Yan 项燕, long presumed dead, was still alive and riding with them. With those two ghosts for legitimacy, they announced the resurrection of the old kingdom of Chu 楚. Oppressed former Chu subjects flocked in. Once the numbers looked serious, Chen Sheng set up capital at Chen Xian 陈县 and crowned himself King of Zhang Chu 楚张王— “Expanding Chu.”

The new king wasted no time trying to tear chunks out of the Qin empire. The empire, already brittle, began to crack. Unfortunately Chen’s own army cracked faster.

Wu Guang was murdered by his own officers. Chen Sheng, suddenly seeing knives everywhere, started executing anyone who looked insufficiently enthusiastic. Generals who won victories simply stopped coming home. Wu Chen 武臣 declared himself King of Zhao 赵. Zhou Wen gave up and switched sides. Chen Sheng watched his rebellion dissolve into a collection of smaller, self-serving kingdoms while the Qin court still fought for its life.

In the end Chen Sheng was left with almost no one. In 208 BC a subordinate named Zhuang Jia 状贾 simply killed him. The whole affair had lasted roughly six months.

Chen Sheng was ruthless, paranoid, and strategically out of his depth. His kingdom was doomed almost from the moment it was proclaimed. Yet he remains the man who first proved the Qin could bleed. Every later rebel who actually finished the job — Xiang Yu, Liu Bang, and the rest — walked through the door he kicked open.