About 2200 years old, Xiang Yu, the King of Chu, and Liu Bang, the Emperor of Han Dynasty, were fighting for the complete control of China. Despite of the title of Xiang Yu seemingly lower, his military power was superior and Liu Bang was getting hammered everywhere.
Liu Bang had a general called Han Xin, who was a lieutenant under Xiang. Liu , trying to break the disadvantageous situation, sent Han Xin, who had joined Liu Bang because Xin had no opportunities under XIang.
Han Xin led 30,000 to conquer the northern state of Zhao, which was allied to Xiang. The King of Zhao and the Prime Minister commanded a force said to be 200,000. Whatever the number was, it was significantly larger than Xin's forces.
Xin's forces were mostly untrained and could flee.
Han Xin decided to position his untrained troops just before a river, so if they retreated they would have no choice falling into the water.
Zhao's much more numerous forces attacked Xin's forces , planning to drive them into the riverbed. However, with their backs on the water, Xin's forces fought like what, while Han Xin himself had sent a detachment, no more than 1,000, behind the lines to raise his flag behind the Zhao lines.
The much larger Zhao forces collapsed, and the King and Prime Minister of Zhao was captured by Han Xin and killed. Xiang Yu lost a huge ally in that region, and that was the beginning of the end of XIang.
A former trainee ruining his former boss.
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BabyMonster was 4 years in the gestation, full of fanfare although not without its hiccups as its most promising member did not join for whatever reason, and it debuted two times, November 2023 and April 2024. (I only count the first one.)
And when it debuted, it was said to be the second coming of BlackPink, with the world watchimg.
Its members trained for more than 4 years, except the Thais who trained for about 3 years.
I don't think anyone in YG, or , indeed, Hybe entertained the idea that Illit would become a deadly rival of BabyMonster.
Illit was in gestation for less than 9 months , starting with R U Ready at the end of 2023.
It had Park Minju, the YG Trainee who trained with BabyMonster; Noh Yunah, who was with Fantagio, two Japanese members who cannot sing to save their lives, and one who did not know where she was at. From the few available clips of them, it seems it is hard for Minju and Moka to hide the fact that they are 'uncomfortable' with Wonhee, whom, they might think, had taken the spot of someone they knew and were more attached with. There seems to be 2 factions in there, Minju-Moka and Yunah (who spent the better part of her trainee days at Fantagio and came to Hybe later than Minju)-Wonhee, with Iroha in the middle but likely to side with Moka since both are Japanese.
Most of Magnetic is sung by Minju, with the Japanese members given short lines and Wonhee mostly 'singing' the meaningless 'bae bae' and the first and last lines.
By doing so Belift , or Hybe, brought the older YG style to Hybe, while post-Teddy YG had abandoned the familiar YG style which led Big Bang, 2NE1 and BlackPink to huge success.
Illit is likely to win today's Inkigayo and Baemon is on the list of performers there. While it is likely that its perf will be prerecorded and it won't stay to bother to watch its former trainmate winning the first #1 from Inkigayo, the long playground of YG acts, it would be strange that a former trainee completely derails the plans of an entire company, who had put everything on BabyMonster, something nobody in Hybe and YG planned about.
(It is certain that Hybe did not really think too much about Illit's debut song, since it promoted txt within 2 weeks , making it collide with Illit at Music Bank and Music Core, something the txt members probably did NOT expect)
Magnetic might go down with the most successful 'YG' song in the recent years, possibly even the next 'Gee'. Which might signficantly change the course of Baemon.
It didn't have to be this way, but the circus around Ahyeon led to this disaster for BM.
