Su Wu was born in Ling Du in the Western Han Dynasty. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he was ordered to go to Xiongnu and was detained. Xiongnu nobles tried to force him to surrender. He would rather die than surrender, was put into the cellar, and was later exiled to the frozen and uninhabited Beihai to shepherd sheep.
But he persevered, "thirsty for snow and hungry for blanket", and persisted for 19 years until he finally returned to Chang' an successfully. Su Wu's unswerving national integrity has been celebrated by people for more than two thousand years.