Chu–Han Contention
The Chu–Han Contention begins as Liu Bang attacks the Three Qins
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The Shiji says only that Liu Bang returned by the Old Road and surprised Zhang Han at Chencang. The celebrated plank-road deception was added by much later storytellers.
A kingdom meant to keep him away
After Qin's collapse in 206 BCE, Xiang Yu reorganised its former territory as a confederacy of kingdoms, styled himself Hegemon-King of Western Chu, and assigned Liu Bang the kingdom of Han in Ba, Shu and Hanzhong — 41 counties, according to the Han Shu.
He placed three surrendered Qin generals — Zhang Han, Sima Xin and Dong Yi — over the former Qin heartland in Guanzhong, denying Liu Bang the region he expected. Liu Bang's dynastic name came from that remote western assignment.
The eighth month of 206 BCE
Liu Bang used Han Xin's plan to return by the Old Road, surprised Zhang Han and defeated his forces at Chencang and again at Haozhi. Sima Xin and Dong Yi submitted; Zhang Han withdrew to Feiqiu.
He rapidly obtained most of Guanzhong while Xiang Yu was occupied suppressing resistance in Qi. The contest stopped being a dispute over the post-Qin settlement and became a multi-year war between Han, Western Chu and their shifting allies.
How the dates were kept
There is no universally identified starting day. The conventional start is the political settlement and renewed warfare of 206 BCE, and early Chinese chronology used the Qin/Han lunisolar calendar, whose months do not map cleanly onto proleptic-Julian dates.
Han official chronology treated Liu Bang's creation as King of Han in 206 as the beginning of his reign; his imperial accession came in 202, which is also where the Battle of Gaixia and Xiang Yu's death belong.
The conventional post-Qin confederacy is called the Eighteen Kingdoms, though some enumerations count Xiang Yu's own Western Chu separately and so describe nineteen realms.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 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 -0206.
What the sources leave uncertain
- The Chu–Han Contention did not begin on one universally identified day. The conventional start is the political settlement and renewed warfare of 206 BCE, especially Liu Bang's eighth-month offensive.
- Early Chinese chronology used the Qin/Han lunisolar calendar. Converting its months into exact proleptic-Julian dates can shift events conventionally labeled late 207 or early 206 BCE.
- Han official chronology treated Liu Bang's creation as King of Han in 206 as the beginning of his reign, while his imperial accession occurred in 202.
- The label 'civil war' is modern shorthand for a conflict among multiple kingdoms and coalitions after Qin's collapse, not necessarily the actors' own constitutional description.