Old Tales of the Republic

In the turbulent years of the Beiyang era, amid the mists of Tianjin, Jia Xiaobao was a lowly teapot boy scraping by in a brothel in the French Concession. He thought the greatest fortune life could offer him was learning a few foreign phrases and scamming a little money. But a sudden assassination drew him into the currents of the age. Forced to assume another identity and infiltrate the powerful Feng family’s marshal’s residence, he used the slickness and quick wits he had honed on the streets, along with his gift for spinning tall tales, to find his way through the strict confines of a grand household and the deadly struggles for power. From the deep courtyards of Tianjin to the glittering foreign concessions of Shanghai, he navigated between Green Gang magnates and Japanese trading companies. From the revolutionary front lines in Lingnan to the smoke-filled battlefields beyond the passes, he snatched opportunities amid warlords, revolutionaries, and Japanese spies. From political power plays in Jinling to an astonishing crisis back in Tianjin, he became a key player capable of shaping the times. There was Feng Ning, the young lady recently returned from studying abroad; Shuangxi, the maid whose past was a mystery; Fang Yimei, a Shanghai schoolgirl; Ke Wanyi, the daughter of a prominent Lingnan family; Mu Ping, an orphan of the Yunnan Army; Zeng Rou, a martial arts instructor from Baoding; and Su Wanqing, a warlord’s concubine in the northeast... In this great era, as the old order crumbled and new ideas surged, Jia Xiaobao, a small-time nobody with no desire to be a hero, repeatedly and inadvertently shifted the course of history. Against the sweeping historical canvas of the early Republic of China, this is the story of how a little man weathered the storms of warlord clashes, encroaching foreign powers, and revolutionary upheaval. Using his own streetwise philosophy of survival, he outwitted the powerful, bested the wicked, and protected those he cared about. In this unprecedented upheaval of three thousand years, he ultimately lit a guiding lamp for himself and the women he loved, and found a place to call home.