A New Chapter for the Han: The Marquis of Huaiyin’s Chronicle of Shu

The New Chapter of the Han Dynasty: The Marquis of Huaiyin Rules Shu tells the story of Han Xin, the “Immortal of War,” one of the Three Heroes of the early Han. After dying with resentment in the Bell Chamber of Changle Palace, his soul transmigrates across a thousand years and inhabits the body of Liu Shan, the last ruler of Shu Han, during the Jingyao era of the Three Kingdoms. Shu Han is then in its twilight years. Cao Wei menaces it from the north, Eastern Wu keeps to its corner in the south, and within the court, the eunuch Huang Hao wields power amid corruption and decay. The dynasty has barely ten years left before its fall. When a military genius who “never loses a battle or fails to take a target” finds himself trapped in the body of the supposedly hopeless Liu Shan, Han Xin awakens to a crisis with strategies that astonish the world. He suppresses a thousand years of resentment over being discarded once his usefulness was over, and relies on his vision beyond his time and his talent for military command to secretly purge Huang Hao's faction, reform government, and rebuild the army. He pulls Shu Han back from the brink of collapse, first turning the tide in the defense of Hanzhong, then expanding its territory with a strategy of “gradually consuming Yong and Liang.” Rejecting the aggressive northern campaigns of Jiang Wei, he uses the uncanny calculations of the “Immortal of War” to win a succession of victories at Qishan, in Guanzhong, and across the Central Plains. He also deftly drives a wedge between Wei and Wu, bringing the chaotic Three Kingdoms back onto his chessboard. With grand historical scope, this novel paints the legend of Han Xin using Liu Shan's body to turn the tide of fate. He must not only recreate such classic stratagems as the desperate stand with one's back to the river and the ambush from ten directions, but also balance Shu Han's factions in the whirlpool of power and restore the Han dynasty through the art of imperial rule. When the former Marquis of Huaiyin finally marches on Jianye as the heir of the Han, a military and political miracle spanning a thousand years will write a new chapter of unity for a divided land.