The Winter War, 1939–1940: How Finland Survived the Soviet Invasion. Map animation and editing by me.

These jade seals belonged to Liu Sheng (刘胜), an elder half-brother of Emperor Wu of Han (汉武帝), more than 2,100 years ago. Liu Sheng ruled a kingdom roughly a hundred kilometers south of modern-day Beijing. And compared with his fiercely ambitious younger brother, he seems to have lived almost the opposite kind of life. While Emperor Wu was crushing the Huns and opening the Silk Road across Eurasia, Liu Sheng was busy enjoying the pleasures of royal life, and fathering more than a hundred children. By the standards of both his own age and ours, he might seem like the perfect example of a prince who never amounted to much. But history has a sense of magic. What truly kept Liu Sheng's name alive was one of his descendants: Liu Bei (刘备). Centuries later, in an age of chaos, Liu Bei began life with remarkably little. According to traditional accounts, he supported himself by weaving and selling straw sandals and mats. He had no army, no territory, and almost no political power. Yet defeat after defeat, he kept coming back. Over time, his reputation for benevolence, loyalty, and perseverance drew extraordinary men to his side, including Zhuge Liang (诸葛亮), one of the most celebrated strategists in Chinese history, and Guan Yu (关羽), one of its most legendary warriors. Against far more powerful rivals, Liu Bei eventually carved out a kingdom of his own in southwestern China. And strangely enough, at the beginning of that entire family story stood Liu Sheng, the ancestor who seemed to have spent much of his life doing very little of historical importance. Yet he did one thing that would frustrate tomb robbers for two thousand years: He buried himself, literally, inside a mountain. Liu Sheng had an enormous burial complex carved directly into the rock. After his burial, the entrance was sealed and packed with layers of stone, hiding the underground palace so effectively that it remained undisturbed for nearly two millennia. Then, in 1968, PLA soldiers carrying out construction work accidentally blasted into the mountainside. After nearly two thousand years of silence, the secret buried palace was opened to the world once more. There, on the stone coffin bed, two large seals lay beside Liu Sheng's body. Their handles were carved in the form of tigers. But there was something strange about them. Neither seal had a single character carved on it. Archaeologists have suggested that they may have been funerary copies of the seals Liu Sheng used as the Prince of Zhongshan. His official seals belonged to the world of the living and could not simply follow him into the grave. So blank versions may have been made for his burial, so that even in the next world, Liu Sheng could still be a king. And deep inside the sleeve of Liu Sheng's world-famous jade burial suit, archaeologists found two tiny seals, each less than a centimeter across. They were engraved with the characters: "Xin (Seal)" and "Si Xin (Private Seal)." His younger brother, Emperor Wu, spent his life building a formidable empire, the kind of life almost designed to be remembered. Liu Sheng, by contrast, devoted himself far more to pleasure and fathered more than a hundred children. Two thousand years later, looking back at this strange contrast between the brothers, history delivered one final twist: Liu Sheng became unportable too. Emperor Wu built an empire. Liu Sheng built a vast family and a tomb. Both, in very different ways, found immortality in history. Sometimes, living well can cast a longer shadow than anyone expects.