to personally face swords and arrows. He occupied where the Luo River [(洛水, flowing near Luoyang)] flowed into the Yellow River, claiming to have a million men. People like Dou Jiande all submitted to him, and even the Duke of Tang [i.e., Emperor Gaozu] showed support for him. Was his accomplishment not great? While he lost the Battle of Yanshi, he still had several tens of thousands of men. If he had been without suspicions in his chest and showed full of openness in his heart, he chould have headed to Liyang, using Xu Shiji as his general and Wei Zheng as his strategist. Whether he would have been successful would be difficult to tell. However, Heaven had already favored someone else, and his chance was over. He was at least more fortunate than Chen She. He was the first to rise in rebellion but was finally willing to surrender to others. Did he not know that this put him in great danger? Further, he could not actually submit, contributing his abilities to serve the emperor, and he finally rebelled, becoming only a madman. He did not accept Wang Bodang's words, and he finally suffered disaster at Taolin. Some have compared him to Xiang Yu. Even if he had sufficient civil and military abilities to match, he was far more lacking in bravery and decisiveness. If Yang Su had favored Li Mi's abilities, he should have let Li Mi be a servant of the emperor, but instead he gave Li Mi to his idiotic son [i.e., Yang Xuangan], finally leading to the slaughter of his house. How was that appropriate? The Song Dynasty historian Ouyang Xiu, in his New Book of Tang, also commented: Some have compared Li Mi to Xiang Yu, but it was an inapt comparison. When Xiang rose, it took him only five years to unite the empire. Li fought for a long time, for tens and hundreds of battles, and could not capture the eastern capital. When Yang Xuangan rose, Li first advised him to seize Guanzhong [(i.e., the Chang'an region)], but when he himself became leader, he could not beat his drums and head west, and that led to his defeat. Li's good treatment of his adherents was comparable to Tian Heng [(田橫, who was one of the Qi princes who tried and failed to revive Qi after the destruction of Qin Dynasty)], and was