A dog butcher of Pei by trade, brother-in-law to Liu Bang. Remonstrated with his lord at the palace and carried a shield through the gate at Hong Gate.
A man who cannot refuse death would not haggle over a bowl of wine. The King of Chu bound every general by oath, and the Lord of Pei took Xianyang first, sealed the treasuries, drew back and waited. This is Qin's downfall continued.Fan Kuai standing facing east in Xiang Yu's tent at Hong Gate, 206 BCE; Shiji, juan 7, Basic Annals of Xiang Yu (his campaigns are listed in juan 95)
Appears in
Relations
- Liu Bang brother — His lord and his sister's husband: at the Qin palace he told him to go back out to the open camp, and Liu Bang would not listen until Zhang Liang said the same thing.
- Zhang Liang colleagues — Zhang Liang fetched him in at the gate when the sword-dance began, and reported him to Xiang Yu by name: the chariot-partner of Liu Bang, called Fan Kuai.
- Xiang Yu enemies — He walked in on an ordered killing with a shield on his shoulder, ate a raw shoulder standing, and answered the overlord's question with the one argument that stopped the day.
Myth vs record
The shield, the bristling hair, the raw pork eaten standing: Fan Kuai is the sworn brute of the stage, loyal muscle with no judgement of his own.
The entrance is in the annals exactly as the operas stage it, and the histories keep his trade with it — dog butcher of Pei, given the sister of Liu Bang's wife in marriage (Shiji, juan 7). What sits beside that in the same pages is a man who twice overruled his emperor in public and was right both times: back out of the palace, and do not listen to a petty man's slander at the feast. His own biography (juan 95) is a service record of towns taken and grain roads cut; he held Wuyang as a marquis and died in 189 BCE still employed by the house he married into.