[The Rise to Power]
She was the regent Grand Princess of the Southern Realm, but overnight she became a prisoner.
Her closest relatives joined forces with her political enemies to frame her. “Defiling the imperial palace and forming a faction to seize power.” Her death seemed certain, with a blade at her throat. She pretended to surrender her military authority, then staged her own death in a fall from a cliff. Disappearing from public view into the shadows, she took the name Mu Yuan as her weapon and began weaving her web.
She wrested power from the chancellor, brought down the Grand Princess, and quelled internal strife, dancing on the edge of a blade at every turn. Then disaster struck from beyond the borders: Prince Su launched a coup, the Northern Desert army advanced on the frontier, the young emperor fled, and the empire teetered on the brink of collapse. Torn between loyalty, affection, and her homeland, she forged an alliance with her old nemesis on the edge of a cliff. With the courage to venture into the desolate frontier, she bought the realm a chance to survive.
Rising from the ruins, she founded the Fengxiang Army and the Mu Yuan Trading Company. She helped a claimant seize the throne in the Eastern Lands, stirred up a storm in the Northern Desert, and established herself as the Phoenix Regent of the Western Isles. But just as she neared the pinnacle of power, her most trusted mentor revealed his true identity as a surviving member of the Tang royal line and joined forces with the new emperor of the Northern Desert to launch a surprise attack…
The battle at Cangyun Pass was soaked in blood. Her sworn sisters died for their country, her closest friend lost a leg, and the defending general was gravely wounded. She personally led a great army north to take her revenge, united the five nations, ascended the throne, and founded the Great Yu Dynasty. Her former political ally married into the imperial family as her consort.
She did more than claim the throne. She ushered in a new age.
She distributed land equally, abolished taxes, established schools for girls and imperial examinations open to all, and enshrined the right of both men and women to inherit the throne. Thus began an age of prosperity.
From a prisoner in a desperate plight to an empress of her age, she spent her life showing the world that the realm had never belonged to anyone else.
