Sorry for double posting, but I just find this period really interesting.
Actually, the more I read about Han, the closer I think the the contest was. IOTL, Liu Bang managed to capture Chu’s capital temporarily until Xiang Yu, with surprise and superior generalship, thrashed Liu Bang at the battle of Pengcheng. Liu Bang was surrounded and killed, the anti Chu coalition fell apart, and Han was reduced, once and for all, to an isolated, truncated state in the periphery. A dust storm that gathered around the place where Liu Bang’s body was found seemed only to signify divine displeasure...
Maybe if Liu Bang could have been better prepared at Pengcheng, or even remained alive after the battle, things could have been different. After all, he was a pretty sneaky guy...
Edit: then again, Xiang Yu was known as one of the greatest generals of East Asian history, perhaps in world history, by all accounts, so taking him down would have been no easy task.