During the Sui and Tang dynasties, there was a tyrant, Dou Jiande, who was one of Li Shimin's main rivals when he unified the world. When he was young, one night thieves broke into his home. When Dou Jiande found out, he stood under the window and killed three bandits in a row. When the other thieves saw this, they were too frightened to enter the house, so they pleaded outside the house to return the bodies of their accomplices.
Dou Jiande said, "You dropped the rope so that I could tie up the corpse." The thief threw it into the rope. Dou Jiande tied the rope to himself, and when the thief pulled hard over the wall, Dou Jiande immediately swung his knife and jumped up, killing several thieves in this way. From then on, the bandits were afraid as soon as they heard "Dou Jiande".
Later, Dou Jiande was captured by Li Shimin, and Li Shimin asked Dou Jiande: "I conquered Wang Shichong, but you crossed the border and offended our army!" Is it really not afraid of death? Dou Jiande said, "If you don't come by yourself today, I'm afraid you will have to take it from afar." "After saying that, I was also fearless and calmly went to death."