I transmigrated to Guanzhong in the aftermath of the blood-soaked morning at Xuanwu Gate.
The glorious Zhenguan era recorded in the history books was nowhere in sight. All I saw was the village headman holding a conscription register and sneering: “One man out of every three, two out of every five. Your family has three able-bodied men, so one of you has to go!”
Clutching a blackened bran cake, I wrapped my thin coat tighter and stepped into the military camp, only to discover that the real Tang was a hundred times more brutal than the history books said.
There are no heroic auras on the battlefield. The “cold blade” is the freezing iron in a soldier’s palm; “knocking at the palace gate” is a commoner’s plea to the imperial house.
When the Turkic cavalry trampled the border defenses, I wiped the warm blood from my face and smiled. “This time, the historians will have to write a different story.”
