Raising an Army of One Hundred Thousand: A Ring from the Start

The ruler of Qi lost a game of chess to the ruler of Lin, and gave Lin a city to use as a place to sharpen its blades, saving face.

A place to sharpen blades means exactly what it sounds like: soldiers hone the blades in their hands with the blood of ordinary people.

Sigu City was surrounded by ten thousand soldiers from Lin. Every day, large numbers of troops stormed into the city, looting, pillaging, and raping to their hearts' content. They did not sheathe their swords for a single day. The next day, another group took their place...

The people of Sigu City went from struggling to resist, to enduring a bloody massacre, and finally sinking into utter despair.

Just then, the frail scholar Zhang Tao, who had unexpectedly bonded with the Power Ring, strode out of the city steeped in death and sorrow. Leading a hundred thousand ordinary people transformed into fierce, wolf-like soldiers, he routed Lin's army, leaving tens of thousands of soldiers and their armor scattered among the blood and gore. Pointing to the heavens and the earth, he declared to the rulers of a hundred kingdoms, "Since the world has fallen into chaos, all order has collapsed, benevolence is gone, and the dynasties are corrupt, perhaps this scholar should create a whole new world."

The rulers of the hundred kingdoms scoffed and sent a million soldiers to surround the city...

Until the million soldiers were reduced to bones, the court fell apart, and the imperial capital was lost...

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.