The Brilliant Strategist Liu Bowen

At the end of the Yuan dynasty, the land is in chaos and warlords rise on every side. In Qingtian, eastern Zhejiang, a peerless genius quietly enters the world: Liu Bowen. He understands astronomy and geography, is deeply versed in yin-yang and divination, and carries a heartfelt desire to save the people and bring them peace. This book recounts the legendary life of the man hailed as “Zhuge Liang divided the realm into three, while Liu Bowen united it.”

As a young man, he recognizes the Yuan dynasty's waning fortunes and resigns to live in seclusion. Later, with his keen insight, he becomes an advisor to the common-born hero Zhu Yuanzhang. With strategies as unfathomable as the workings of ghosts and gods, Liu Bowen directs events from behind the scenes: at Lake Poyang, he uses the weather to defeat Chen Youliang; in Jinling, he devises a chain of clever plans to outwit Zhang Shicheng; and in the northern campaign, he anticipates the enemy's every move and advances straight for the capital. He helps Zhu Yuanzhang defeat the other warlords and lay the foundations for the three-hundred-year Ming dynasty. He observes the stars at night, reads the feng shui of the land, and predicts the future, leaving behind the mysterious Songbing Ge. Upright and incorruptible, he reforms the administration, yet cannot escape the emperor's schemes or the jealous rivalries among meritorious officials. Even after retiring once his work is done, he cannot shake the emperor's suspicions. He dies suddenly on his way back to his hometown, leaving behind a reputation as a “half-immortal” and countless unanswered mysteries.

Combining historical fact with legend, this book portrays how Liu Bowen used his unparalleled strategic genius and mystic powers to stir the currents of a chaotic age and write a founding legend, only to meet the tragic fate of “a brilliant mind that could calculate everything but the emperor's heart, whose schemes no art could guard against.”