A Journey Through the Azure Clouds

Shen Yanqiu, a poor scholar from Jiangnan, enters officialdom carrying half a crate of old books and a mysterious defense map left by his father. From the bureaucratic disputes of the Hanlin Academy to the locust-plague crisis in Wanping County, from secret battles over the silver reserves at the Ministry of Revenue to the beacon fires on the frontier, he uses an abacus as his blade and the classics as his armor, carving a bloody path through a treacherous court. The defense map holds the secret to his father’s wrongful conviction, while a jade pendant links him to an unknown ally. Only after rising step by step from a seventh-rank compiler to grand secretary does he understand that the end of the road to high office is the weighty responsibility of protecting the people’s well-being.