Gao Yiming

Gao Yiming - born Gao "Yuan" - was the second born of a peasant family seeking social advancement. The older brother had been propelled by his family into the civil service, but he failed aptitude tests and drowned his ambitions and his family's fortune in alcohol. Yiming then undertook to join the volunteers in the fight against the Yellow Turbans and distinguished himself by his skills and military rigour, notably by eliminating a group of brigands whose leader was none other than his patricidal younger brother. Yiming knew glory, until he succumbed to the political shenanigans of Liu Yao and his partner, the bandit Yan Baihu. Left for dead, he joined General Cheng Pu, about to serve young Sun Ce himself. To wash his honour, Yiming decided to dress only in white until the death of Yan Baihu and Liu Yao. He obtained the command of a small unit sent in the front line, which he named the "Sharp Claws of Heaven" and upon which he imposed his dress codes. The contribution of the Claws enabled the young Lord Sun Ce to conquer the Wu Province at an alarming speed, something no one had predicted. Historians find little mention of Yiming and the Claws after the assassination of the Little Hegemon, but all agree that they could not disappear suddenly.