Destiny's Chosen: Riding a Bull into Battle

Wang Mang usurped the Han throne, plunging the realm into chaos. In Caiyang County, Nanyang Commandery, a farming Han imperial clansman was mocked by villagers as 'hopeless'—his name was Liu Xiu, courtesy name Wenshu. His elder brother Liu Yan wanted to raise an army to restore Han, but he urged caution; when government troops came to arrest them, he voluntarily surrendered; during a breakout, when all warhorses were gone, he rode a bull into battle. Everyone thought he was too steady, too timid, too unlike a hero. But no one knew that the jade pendant on his chest would grow warm at his most dangerous moments—in a ruined temple, cobwebs sealed the door to block pursuers; at a dry well, water spontaneously sprang forth to quench his thirst; a mole cricket crawled onto his face, waking him from sleep and saving him from encirclement. He knelt on a ridge and bowed three times to heaven: 'Heaven above, if Liu Xiu can achieve great deeds, I will not betray the mandate of heaven!' From bull-riding general to founding emperor, from breaking 420,000 enemies with 20,000 at Kunyang to winning over the Bronze Horse Army with sincerity—when Liu Yan was wrongfully killed, he endured silently; when the Gengshi Emperor grew suspicious, he swallowed humiliation. In twelve years, he completed a dynasty's journey from ruin to restoration. The historian wrote: 'The Guangwu Restoration was heaven's mandate.' Liu Xiu set down the bamboo slip and smiled faintly: 'What I have always believed in is not heaven's mandate. It is the hearts of men.'