202 BC

Battle of Gaixia

Gaixia, Wujiang, and Liu Bang's accession

A boat was waiting to carry Xiang Yu home across the Yangtze. The Shiji says he refused it because none of the 8,000 young men who had crossed west with him were going back.

Three events, one entry

The year 202 BCE is secure, but it covers a sequence rather than a day. In the Shiji, Liu Bang and his allied commanders encircle Xiang Yu's Western Chu army at Gaixia; Xiang Yu breaks out at night with about 800 horsemen and reaches Dongcheng with 28.

At Wujiang he refuses the waiting boat, gives the boatman his horse, and cuts his own throat.

Only later that year, after three formal refusals, does Liu Bang accept the imperial title at Fanshui — so the defeat, the death and the accession are three moments, not one.

Why no day is given

The traditional accession is recorded as a jiawu day in an ancient lunisolar calendar, which modern works convert to 28 February 202 BCE on the proleptic Julian calendar. That is a conversion, not a date the sources supply.

Nothing in the Shiji dates Gaixia or Wujiang to a day at all. The narrative comes from Sima Qian, writing roughly a century later and shaping the account as tragic biography as well as chronicle.

Even the dynasty's start year is a convention: Han chroniclers also counted Liu Bang's rule from his creation as King of Han in 206 BCE, so reference works give either year.

What followed the death

All Chu territory except Lu submitted to Han. Lu gave in after Han forces displayed Xiang Yu's head — and Liu Bang then buried his rival with the rites of a Duke of Lu and publicly mourned him.

Men competing for the reward on Xiang Yu's corpse trampled one another; five claimants matched their pieces and received separate fiefs.

The Han that began here was not politically continuous to 220 CE: Wang Mang's Xin dynasty interrupted it from 9 to 23 CE, separating Western from Eastern Han.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 2 audit passes Traditional date

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Traditional date. Conventionally dated here; the research places it at -0202.

What the sources leave uncertain

This listing compresses several events into one date. The defeat at Gaixia, Xiang Yu's death, the submission of remaining Chu territory and Liu Bang's accession did not all occur on one day.
The traditional accession is recorded as a jiawu day in an ancient lunisolar calendar; 28 February 202 BCE is a modern proleptic-Julian conversion.
Han chroniclers also counted Liu Bang's rule from his creation as King of Han in 206 BCE, so reference works variously give 206 or 202 as the dynasty's beginning.
The detailed death narrative comes principally from Sima Qian's Shiji, compiled roughly a century after the event and shaped as tragic biography as well as chronicle.