royal house of Wei to be the King of Wei, also independent of Chu. A major reason why Wu Chen and the generals who assassinated Wu Guang broke away was that Chen Sheng was paranoid as a king: generals were executed at any sign of infidelity, even by rumours. Chen Sheng's ruthlessness and constant defeats in battle made it harder and harder for him to gather followers. Chen Sheng was greatly weakened, and as he suffered losses at the hands of the Qin army, he personally led a force to try to gather reinforcements, but he was assassinated by his guard Zhuang Jia in January 208 BC. He died just five months after his rebellion began. However, his act of defiance provided the spark of inspiration which eventually led to the fall of the Qin dynasty. Legacy Chen Sheng was often idealized by versions of history promulgated by Chinese historians as a great leader of the peasants against intolerable oppression of the Qin nobility and bourgeois. However, that perception is not reality. Chen Sheng's decisions, while motivated by his desire to overthrow Qin, were often driven by self-interest and an illusory sense of superiority; as a result he often failed to act on good advice. As the Song Dynasty historian Sima Guang wrote in the Zizhi Tongjian: While Chinese historians may quibble with Sima Guang's characterization of Chen, it appears to be quite correct. He claimed the title of king only months after the start of his rebellion, without a sufficient foundation. Once he did, he effectively became stuck in Chen County and could not firmly hold territories that were conquered, because the people in the territories did not view him with great affection. According to Shiji, Chen Sheng was the person who coined the Chinese proverb, "How can a little songbird understand the ambitions of a grand swan!" (燕雀安知鴻鵠志), a saying that figures prominently in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. He sometimes appears as a door god in Chinese and Taoist temples, usually paired with Wu Guang. The pattern of an impostor and his general, founded by Chen Sheng, was closely followed by Han Shantong and Liu Futong in the end of Yuan Dynasty. See also Dazexiang Uprising References Citations Bibliography Sima Qian. Records of the Grand Historian. Generals from Henan Chinese nobility Qin dynasty people 208 BC deaths Year of birth unknown 3rd-century BC murdered monarchs Assassinated