Figures from the Long River of History

Qin Shi Huang, who unified the six states; Liu Bang, who founded the Han dynasty; Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan, who divided the realm into three; the three Sima brothers, who brought the Three Kingdoms under Jin; the warlords of the chaotic Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms; Zhao Kuangyin of the Song, who took the throne by force; Genghis Khan of the Yuan, who swept across Eurasia; Zhu Yuanzhang, who founded the Ming; and Nurhaci of the Qing, who began with thirteen suits of armor. History is alive, moving between peaceful days of song and dance and the clash of armies and horses.

Why did the great Qin dynasty collapse after just two generations? How did Liu Bang start out from the streets? Why didn't Cao Cao declare himself emperor? How did the Sima family replace the Cao family? How did the Three Kingdoms end? Why was the era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms so chaotic? Why was a Song emperor captured and enslaved? What did Qin Hui do, and why has he been kneeling in Hangzhou ever since? Why did the Yuan dynasty last less than a hundred years? How did Zhu Yuanzhang go from a beggar boy to an emperor? How did Nurhaci's forces advance from the northeast to seize Beijing? And how did the last emperor of the Qing become an ordinary citizen? Come find the answers in this book.