The smoke and willows in the Sui palace once reflected the splendor of the prosperous times; the sound of the waves on the canal also carried the sad news of the country's demise. This is an epic scroll with Sui Yang Emperor Yang Guang as the protagonist. In the interweaving of reality and fiction, it reveals the bloody life of this controversial emperor through the ages.
He is the King of Jin, Yang Guang, who conquered Nanchen with a golden sword and an iron horse, and reunified China, which had been divided for 280 years, with the ambition to "unify China" burning in his eyes. He was the emperor of great cause. He built the Eastern Capital and dug the canal in ten years. With the power of thunder, he created a prosperous era in which "half the world's wealth returned to Yan", but he also soaked the banks of Tongji Canal with the blood and tears of the people. The banners of the three expeditions to Goguryeo blocked out the sun, which was his ambition to expand the territory and open up new territories, and was also the beginning of exhaustion of national power; the cold stars and cold moons surrounding Yanmen reflected his panic under the majesty of the emperor, and also illuminated the shadow of the end of the world where wars and smoke were everywhere.
The novel integrates the legendary characters of Li Jing, Li Shimin and other characters in "The Heroes of the Sui and Tang Dynasties", and also strictly adheres to the historical context such as the War to Destroy Chen, Yang Xuangan's Rebellion, and the Jiangdu Mutiny. It reveals the hardships of people's livelihood in the glorious achievements, and glimpses the subtleties of human nature in the emperor's mind. He was a man of great talent and willpower, a tyrant whose sins were in the present but whose achievements lasted forever, and a tragic figure who struggled in the torrent of history. When Yu Wenhuaji's rebellious blade pierced the palace curtain, his self-mockery of burning the manuscript of "Daye Law" revealed an emperor's obsession and disillusionment with his family and country.
