During the early Eastern Han Dynasty, Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu dispatched his army to suppress the peasant uprising known as the Red Eyebrows. Among his loyal generals was Feng Yi, a steadfast commander who had won many battles for the emperor.
In the spring of a certain year, facing a severe shortage of military provisions, the Red Eyebrow rebel leader Fan Chong had no choice but to lead his hundreds of thousands of troops out of Chang'an and march westward. However, Liu Xiu's army fiercely blocked their advance near Tianshui, forcing the rebels to retreat back to Chang'an. By winter, desperate to gather food, they turned eastward once more.
Emperor Liu Xiu sent General Feng Yi to block the rebel army, and they faced off near Huayin for over sixty days. Feng Yi ordered two other commanders, Deng Yu and Deng Hong, to coordinate with him in a pincer attack from east and west. But the pair ignored his command, insisting on a frontal assault instead. The rebels used a feigned retreat to lure them into a trap, crushing their forces in a devastating defeat.
Feng Yi had no choice but to lead his main force to rescue, but his soldiers, exhausted from running back and forth and ravaged by hunger, were routed before they could even form ranks, suffering a crushing defeat that scattered them in all directions. Over 3,000 were killed or wounded, and Feng Yi himself abandoned his warhorse, fleeing back to camp alone.
Feng Yi was furious and vowed revenge. Retreating to Huixi (present-day Luoning, Henan), he gathered his remaining troops, several thousand strong, and sent a messenger to the Red Eyebrows Army, setting a time for a decisive battle to the death.
Feng Yi first disguised a detachment as the Red Eyebrow rebels and hid them in ambush. On the day of the decisive battle, as the two armies clashed and neither side could gain the upper hand, the hidden troops struck at the opportune moment. Unable to distinguish friend from foe, the rebel forces turned on each other in chaos, inflicting heavy losses upon themselves.
The remaining tens of thousands of troops fled to Yiyang, only to be heavily surrounded by Liu Xiu's forces. With their food supplies exhausted and no hope of escape, they had no choice but to surrender to Liu Xiu.
After the battle, Liu Xiu issued an edict to Feng Yi, saying:
"You defeated the Red Eyebrows Army and achieved great merit. Though you faced setbacks at Huixi at first, you ultimately won a great victory at Mianchi—what was lost in the east was gained in the west. I offer you my congratulations."
Later, the idiom "Lost at sunrise, gained at sunset" came to mean failing here but succeeding there.
Source: *Book of the Later Han*, "Biography of Feng Yi"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "失之东隅，收之桑榆" came to describe failing here but succeeding there.