General Tso was once the lord-commander of a small city in the borders of the western Xia empire. The city was celebrating one of its local feast days when a mongol army suddenly appeared on the horizon.
Knowing that his guardsmen would not be able to hold the city against such a force, he pleaded that his beloved city be spared for it had no gold or treasures to serve as its ransom, only the food from the day's feast. The mongol khan laughed and demanded ALL the food given to him and his army and in return, perhaps the city will be spared.. for the day, at least.
General Tso had no choice but acquiesce and after ten minutes, the city's inhabitants sent out its food, even their delicious feast chicken, with their heads hung low. The mongol lord was wary of poison, of course, but when his men tested the food, they discovered that not only was it clean, but they declared it the best cooking they have had in years!
Soon the mongol army ate their fill and then ate more, engorging themselves and laughing while the citizens went hungry and despaired their fate.
But the good General had a plan all along… for he knew what the effect of all that Xianese food would do to the enemy.
Dusk fell. General Tso donned his armor, tenderly kissed his wife and children goodbye, and joined his guardsmen at the gate with his sword already drawn. He glanced behind him, drank in one last look at his beloved city, ensconced in the last light of the setting sun…
---
Not much else is truly known after General Tso and his men sallied forth from the city gates, but one can puzzle out the pieces from the tales. The mongols must have been drowsy and barely able to function after all that food, as the General's men descended upon them with a righteous fury. Stories would later tell that he slew the Mongol lord in single combat, demanding HIS feast chicken back as he slashed open the barbarian's belly.
Not much else is known, for General Tso and his brave men all died that night.
…But the city lived, for with they lives they had given the citizens time to escape in the ensuing confusion.
Time would pass, and the grateful men and women would would eventually return to their city, and in renewing the local feast days of their ancestors, they would rename their legendary food in remembrance of the man who was by now himself a legend:
General Tso's Chicken.
The "historical truth" is that the origin of general tso and his chicken are shrouded in mystery. No one really knows who he was or why it is named after him. So there is no proof this didn't happen any more than there is proof that it did.
Suffice it to say that I filled in some of the blanks, but with that in mind, these are pretty true: that the mongols were a dangerous and constant threat to the chinese, and that a general raised in sun tzu's tradition knows that the first principle of warfare is deception. Also pretty true: your productivity is pretty much nuked after eating chinese food...
So I do not claim that this is "historically true", but then again I do not claim to be a historian at all-- only a writer. My truths are different, but no less real.
Historians are assholes anyway. If one of them came up to you and said that the "historically true" William Wallace never really said or did most of the things in Braveheart, does it change the fact that when Wallace says that "Every man dies, not every man truly lives", you might have felt personally challenged by that badass to be a better person at that moment? Does whether or not a general that just happened to be named Tso may or may not have died change the fact that there are plenty of unsung heroes in unremembered times and forgotten places who were willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may live?
So I say that this is true in the way that all legends are true: because they telescope and distill the lessons learned from a thousand lifetimes of human experience, that they still somehow speak to the human condition even today, and that in doing those they can inspire other men to greatness.
To quote GK Chesterton, "These tales are more than true; not because they say that dragons exist, but because they say that dragons can be beaten."
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