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Today I learned about General Tso, more properly known as Zuo Zongtang. He was a Chinese military leader who faught in China's largest civil war, the Taiping Rebellion during the 1850s/60s. The chicken dish was named after him, but no one really knows why. One story is that his wife made it for him once after a battle and he really loved it, but it's more likely that someone just stuck his name on there because they wanted their dish associated with a famous Chinese person.