Red Hare
famous horse owned by Lü Bu during the late Eastern Han dynasty
The Red Hare or Chi Tu (Chinese: 赤兔馬; pinyin: chì tù mǎ) was a famous horse owned by the warlord Lü Bu, who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China.
In historical records
The Red Hare was mentioned in Lü Bu's biographies in the historical texts Records of the Three Kingdoms and Book of the Later Han. It was described as very powerful and capable of "galloping across cities and leaping over moats". Lü Bu rode this horse in 193 during a battle in Changshan (常山; around present-day Shijiazhuang, Hebei), in which he helped another warlord Yuan Shao defeat his rival Zhang Yan.
The Cao Man Zhuan (曹瞞傳) recorded that there was a saying at the time to describe Lü Bu and his Red Hare: "Among men, Lü Bu; Among steeds, Chì Tù (the Red Hare)".
In Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Red Hare has a more prominent role in the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which romanticises the historical events before and during the Three Kingdoms period. It is originally a prized steed of the warlord Dong Zhuo. After hearing a suggestion from his adviser Li Su, Dong Zhuo sends Li Su to present the Red Hare as a gift to Lü Bu and induce Lü Bu to betray his foster father, Ding Yuan, and defect to his side. Lü Bu is very pleased to receive the Red Hare. After Li Su convinces him to do so, he murders Ding Yuan and defects to Dong Zhuo, whom he pledges allegiance to and acknowledges as his new foster father.
The public source identifies “Red Hare” as famous horse owned by Lü Bu during the late Eastern Han dynasty. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hare, famous and horse.
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This entry incorporates text from “Red Hare” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.