A Science Student’s Daring Adventure in the Sui Dynasty

“Your Highness! The Turks have breached Yanmen Pass. His Majesty is in grave danger!”

“Bring me saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal!” Yang Tan tore off his princely robe, a modern scholar's fiery soul blazing in his eyes. “Tonight, I'll show the eagles of the steppe what a technological revolution looks like.”

After waking from a nap, a materials science doctoral student finds himself reborn as the grandson of Emperor Yang of Sui. Faced with a shattered realm and warlords fighting for power, he smiles. “Li Er plays at military strategy, Yuwen Huaji plays at intrigue? I play with science.”

The gunpowder explosions that lit up the night sky above Yanmen Pass sent a million Turks fleeing. At the poetry gathering in Luoyang, “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River” reigned supreme. Before Wagang Stronghold, he rode alone to issue a challenge. “Li Mi, do you know the defensive rating of composite armor?” At court, he crushed Yuwen Huaji's poisoned cup. “Uncle, ever heard of the corrosion resistance of 304 stainless steel?”

Eight peerless beauties stand by him as he turns the tide. A Koguryo assassin's blade stops at his heart. “You could have dodged. Why didn't you?” “Because your hand was trembling.” A courtesan burns her entire collection of scores for him. “This melody should be offered up in sacrifice for Your Highness alone.” A Turkish princess defects from her own people to join him. “I haven't come to marry for peace. I've brought the submission of a hundred thousand horsemen.”

When he finally defeats Li Shimin's Black Armored Cavalry and conquers the Turkish royal court, he vanishes quietly into the East China Sea with his beloveds. All he leaves behind is a poem carved into a beacon tower on the Great Wall: “I once used science to calculate the fate of the realm, but I could not calculate the price of leaving you.”

This is a tale of modern thinking dealing a technological blow to an ancient age of chaos!