Han Xin

Han Xin was a founding meritorious minister of the Western Han dynasty. Having first suffered the profound indignity of crawling beneath an adversary’s legs, he later rose to prominence through the vigorous recommendation of Xiao He and was formally invested as supreme commander upon the Investiture Platform. He executed masterful campaigns—including the feigned repair of the plank roads while secretly advancing through Chen Cang, the desperate battle with his back to the river, and the encirclement at Gaixia with tenfold ambushes—thereby securing Liu Bang’s unification of the realm. Posterity hailed him as the 'Immortal Strategist' and honored him as the ancestral patron of board games, card games, and gambling. After achieving unparalleled success, however, he fell victim to Empress Lü’s suspicion and was executed—an outcome that has long evoked deep sorrow and lamentation. In his hometown of Huai’an stand both the Han Xin Hometown Memorial Site and the Piaomu Shrine, commemorating his legendary gratitude for a single meal—'a thousand pieces of gold for one bowl of rice'—and his extraordinary capacity to endure humiliation in pursuit of great ambition. The common people revere him as a deity of strategic wisdom and lofty aspiration: scholars pray to him for success in imperial examinations and official advancement, gamblers seek his blessing for victory and advantage, and historically, he was also regarded as the originator of deities associated with gambling and theatrical performance.