田单 / Tian Dan

田单 / Tian Dan enters the wiki through 《资治通鉴·周纪》78丨齐国命运竟被城管给救了？ as a 临淄 market administrator caught in the aftermath of 燕国’s conquest of 齐国. The episode uses his low office to explain the title’s “城管” joke: Qi’s later recovery begins with someone whose authority was administrative and local before it became military.

His first important act is practical. During the flight from Anping, he orders his clan to wrap the ends of cart axles in iron, so their vehicles survive when others break down. When 即墨 loses its defending official, residents remember that judgment and choose Tian Dan as commander.

The episode does not yet cover Tian Dan’s later fire-ox counterattack. It focuses on the conditions that make that counterattack possible: 乐毅 is removed, Yan’s army loses morale, and 燕惠王 has been pushed into a decision by Tian Dan’s counterintelligence rumor wedge.

《资治通鉴·周纪》79丨史上用耕牛 打胜仗第一人 completes that setup. Tian Dan first stages divine-sign theater through food offerings, birds, and a “spirit teacher,” then uses rumor to make 骑劫 mutilate prisoners and dig ancestral graves. Those acts create atrocity backfire mobilization inside Jimo because surrender now looks humiliating and unsafe.

He then moves from morale to deception. Tian Dan makes Jimo appear ready to surrender, sends wealthy households to bribe Yan officers, and uses the resulting deceptive surrender lull to prepare the fire-ox night raid. The attack kills Qi Jie, routs Yan, and turns nearby captured cities back toward 齐国.

After the victory, Tian Dan escorts 齐襄王 from 莒城 back to 临淄 and is enfeoffed as Anping Jun. The page therefore now tracks him from low-status local official, to information operator, to restoration general.

《资治通鉴·周纪》80丨诸葛亮的偶像 到底有多厉害？ uses Tian Dan as the closing contrast to 乐毅. Tian Dan’s victory gives him the chancellorship of restored Qi, but the source says 齐襄王 lacks 燕昭王’s breadth and is surrounded by nine flattering ministers. The episode therefore reframes Tian Dan’s success as the opening of a post-victory survival problem.

《资治通鉴·周纪》81丨历史早期PUA记实录（1） makes that survival problem explicit. Tian Dan’s act of giving his fur robe to a freezing old man is read by Qi Xiang Wang as an attempt to buy popular support, until an unnamed artisan temporarily turns the act into royal political credit. The later 刁伯 mission gives court flatterers another opening: they portray Tian Dan’s care for people, attention to former enemies, and recommendation of worthies as signs of larger ambition. Tian Dan responds with a repeated self-abasing audience ritual that the wiki tracks as ritualized minister humiliation.

《资治通鉴·周纪》81丨历史早期PUA记实录（2） gives that danger a temporary correction and a later military cost. 刁伯 rebukes 齐襄王 by arguing that Tian Dan restored Qi without making himself king, after which the king kills the nine favored ministers and expands Tian Dan’s grant. Later, when Tian Dan cannot quickly take Di, 鲁仲连 explains that the Jimo victory depended on a shared death resolve that Tian Dan no longer displays. The episode’s sharper interpretation is that Tian Dan withholds soldier intimacy not simply because wealth has softened him, but because visible shared hardship could renew the king’s suspicion of his popular power.

《资治通鉴·周纪》91丨触龙如何敲开守寡赵太后的门（2） returns to Tian Dan after the Zhao hostage crisis. Once 长安君 goes to Qi and Qi-Zhao alignment forms, Tian Dan commands Zhao troops against 燕国 and takes Zhongyang, then attacks 韩国 and takes Zhuren/Zhucheng. The same episode links his uneasy fit in Qi to the accession of 齐王建 / 田建 under 君王后’s cautious regency.

《资治通鉴·周纪》92丨历史上第一位著名舔狗是谁？（1） briefly repeats Tian Dan’s 264 BCE appointment as 赵国 chancellor while choosing to follow the Qin-Han line first. The note keeps Tian Dan’s Zhao role in the same chronological frame as 白起’s pressure on 韩国.

Connections

• 齐国 and 临淄 - state and origin context.
• 即墨 - city that chooses him as commander after the local official dies.
• 乐毅 and 燕国 - opposing commander and occupying power.
• 燕惠王 and 反间流言楔入 - target and method of his rumor operation.
• 阵前换将风险 - strategic consequence of getting Le Yi replaced.
• 民心型政治安全 - broader setting where local survival and confidence decide whether Qi can recover.
• 暴行反噬式动员, 诈降麻痹, and 火牛阵夜袭 - Zhouji 79 morale, deception, and breakout sequence.
• 齐襄王 - restored ruler Tian Dan brings back to Linzi after the counterattack.
• 乐毅, 忠臣去国的退场伦理, and 君臣反馈失灵 - Zhouji 80 contrast between Le Yi’s successful exit and Tian Dan’s coming exposure after high merit.
• 复国功臣威胁化, 善行君恩化, 刁伯, and 礼节化臣属羞辱 - Zhouji 81 post-restoration suspicion, credit absorption, envoy-triggered slander, and ritual pressure.
• 鲁仲连, 同甘共苦式士气, and 权力退场困境 - Zhouji 81 part 2 Di campaign, lost death resolve, and self-protective limits under suspicion.
• 长安君, 赵国, 燕国, 韩国, 齐王建 / 田建, and 君王后 - Zhouji 91 post-hostage Qi-Zhao military action and Qi succession context.
• 白起 and 周赧王 - Zhouji 92 same-year chronology while the episode turns toward Qin-Han pressure.