I Am the Son of Heaven in Great Zhou

When the soul of a special forces commander crashes into the body of the Son of Heaven in 307 BC, during the crumbling years of the Zhou Dynasty, the course of history quietly veers off track. In the eighth year of King Nan of Zhou, the sword of Chu Li Ji, Qin’s envoy, points straight at Luoyi. The original occupant is being forced onto the humiliating road of exile to Western Zhou, with an empty treasury, mountains of debt contracts, and a predetermined end: “buried in debt and dying in bitterness.” But another soul now inhabits this body. With the ruthless edge of modern combat techniques, the keen eye of a battlefield scout, and the ingenuity to devise simple military equipment, he carves out a sliver of hope from utter despair. Using a special forces soldier’s composure, he sees through the Qin envoy’s threats, then uses the pomp of the Son of Heaven’s ceremonial guard to bluff his way out of danger. He uses soap and improved farming tools to revive the stagnant economy, and brings order to the debt crisis with precise bookkeeping. He turns the palace’s surviving guards and wandering peasants into an unstoppable personal squad, then wins over veteran ministers and forges alliances with the feudal lords by accurately reading the political situation. From scraping by as a dependent in Luoyi to gradually sidelining the ruler of Western Zhou and taking control of taxation, finances, and the military; from using a surprise crossbow attack to cow a small state to playing the six kingdoms against one another at an alliance meeting to contain mighty Qin; from laying the groundwork amid the shadow of the Battle of Changping to shattering the myth of Qin’s invincibility with special forces tactics beneath Hangu Pass... He advances one careful step at a time. He must escape the fate of being buried in debt, but more than that, he must reverse the Zhou royal house’s inevitable downfall. When the six kingdoms turn their gaze back toward Luoyi under his mediation, and Qin’s iron cavalry halts before his brilliant stratagems, the Son of Heaven once dismissed as a puppet is redefining the weight of the title “Ruler of All Under Heaven” with sword and strategy in hand. Will he restore the rites of Zhou throughout the land, or forge a new order and reshape the world?