The Heroic Chronicles of Jingming

In the final years of the Tang Dynasty, the Twelve Jingming Sacred Steles, which celebrated the empire’s founding heroes, were destroyed. A prophecy soon spread among the people: “When Jingming appears again, the Tang will fall.” From then on, the martial world of the Tang was no longer at peace, and the imperial court and the jianghu became intertwined through Jingming. The orphaned boy Jiang Yunque has no desire to enter the jianghu, but is swept into its conflicts all the same. At the Mount Tai Fengshan Ceremony, he makes a name for himself across the land, only to be drawn into the intrigues of the imperial court as well. By a twist of fate, he obtains the Jingming Sword, ranked first in the Twelve Jingming Records, attracting the attention of the many forces and warlords bent on overthrowing the Tang. Tired of a world in chaos, he resolves to retreat into the mountains, only to learn the truth of another part of his past and become embroiled in an even greater scheme...

(Note: This is a fantasy wuxia novel set in an imagined world inspired by ancient China. Its dynasties are unrelated to those in actual history, so please don’t read too much into any discrepancies in place names.)