Han Tzu

Han Tzu (nicknamed Hot Soup) is a major character in Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card. He appears in the novels Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, and Ender in Exile and is the protagonist of the short story "Cheater" which revolves around his childhood.

Hot Soup was one of forty students at the International Fleet's Battle School assigned to Ender Wiggin's Dragon Army. Thus, he became a member of the finest fighting force ever seen at Battle School. He was also made a toon leader, with operational command of a fifth of the army during battle. Once Ender graduated, Dragon Army's leadership was cannibalized and redistributed to the other armies, with every toon leader and deputy assigned as commander to a different army; Hot Soup was presumably one of them, though which army he led was never specified. Finally, he was shipped to Command School to become a member of Ender's jeesh, and was one of the commanders that served under him during the end of the Formic War.

After the Formic War, after briefly returning to Tactical school to finish his high school education, Han Tzu returns to China. However, he is soon disgusted by the corrupt and incompetent military hierarchy. Under the leadership of Achilles de Flandres, China manages to conquer the nation of India as well as much of Southeast Asia. However, he loses it to the liberating forces of Caliph Alai and the newly formed Muslim Crescent League. The Chinese leadership, inculcated into its own myth of invincibility, refuses to surrender until it loses not only all its new territory, but a good deal of Han China as well; Han Tzu's sound (and sane) military advice on the subject is entirely ignored. After Han Tzu stands up and bluntly tells his military superiors that they are fools, he expects to be arrested and executed for his temerity, but his fate is left hanging as Shadow Puppets ends.

In Shadow of the Giant, Han Tzu is still alive, despite over a month having passed. He meets Mazer Rackham in a restaurant. Rackham offers him an escape route—passage to and governorship of an interstellar colony—and when Han refuses, hands him a blow gun disguised as a pen, calling it the "Mandate of Heaven". With the aid of this pen, Han Tzu overthrows the government. The soldiers (who were sent to arrest him many times, but knew of his reputation and were consistently "unable to locate Han Tzu's apartment") assassinate the current leader and the entire nation rallies behind Han Tzu, as they felt they were disgraced when foreign troops entered China.

Chinese policy under Han Tzu is conciliatory and hospitable. He takes as many steps as possible towards securing the goodwill of his formerly-conquered neighbors, including releasing (former) political leaders to their native lands, and turns most of his efforts towards internal reconstruction and pacification. He makes no efforts to reclaim conquered territory; in his opinion, the entire war was a waste. He builds trust and goodwill amongst his soldiers, joking with them and living like them, and soon has an army with high morale to lead into battle.

He is able to successfully defend China from the invading forces from Russia, India, and the Crescent League by creating an alliance with Thailand and the Free People of Earth. He leads an army in the north and defeats an invading Russian army by drawing the Russians into a trap by destroying a dam and manages to defeat an invading Indian army from the south. At some point after this, he too departs for the stars, joining many of Ender's jeesh in leading Earth's efforts at colonization.

External links

• Excerpt of "Cheater"