Setting out in 227 BCE to assassinate the King of Qin,
荆轲 sang
风萧萧兮易水寒，
壮士一去兮不复还 (the wind moans and the Yi River is cold; the hero leaves and will not return). Modern China uses the word for heroic bands: the
八百壮士 are the soldiers who held Shanghai's Sihang Warehouse in 1937.
