The Blood Crown: Three Hundred Years of War

Title: Blood Crown: Three Centuries of War

Synopsis:

An epic history of the Li Tang imperial family spanning three centuries, from the wolf totem at the foot of the Yin Mountains to the dragon banner atop Chang'an's walls, from the struggle for survival among the steppe tribes to the splendor and collapse of a prosperous dynasty.

In the fourth century AD, Li Chuguba, the young leader of the Xianbei Ziwen tribe, raised a bronze sword carved with a wolf's head as his people faced extinction, vowing to fight his way through the chaos. Three hundred years later, his descendant Li Shimin stepped over his elder brother's blood at Xuanwu Gate to claim the throne and usher in the flourishing Zhenguan era. Another three centuries on, the last emperor, Li Zhu, hanged himself under Zhu Quanzhong's blade, leaving behind a tearful final line: “In my next life, may I not be born into an emperor's family.”

With the weight of history behind it, this work depicts the rise and fall of the Li Tang imperial house, from a tribe of foreign nomads to the noblest of the nobility. The wolf's nature and the dragon's spirit mingled in their blood, while ambition and family bonds were torn apart by the struggle for power. Generation after generation of Li descendants fought within the whirlpool of power. Some, like Li Shimin, ushered in a golden age; others, like Li Longji, brought its splendor to ruin with their own hands. And women such as Wu Zetian broke through shackles that had endured for a thousand years.

When three centuries of war had faded away, only the inherited wolf-head jade pendant remained, silently bearing witness to a family's cycle of fate: how it was crowned in blood, then journeyed toward an eternal twilight.