The iron-blooded general Li Yunlong dies on the battlefield. When he opens his eyes again, he has become Zhao Shen, the new emperor hidden away in the Southern Song palace. In Lin’an, the warm breeze lulls the courtiers into a drunken stupor. The ruler and his ministers huddle in their corner of the world, bowing to the Jin. Their vast realm has dwindled to a few broken mountains and rivers, and though the people yearn for their homeland, they tremble before the Jin cavalry.
But the man on the dragon throne is now Li Yunlong, who lives by one creed: if they won’t listen, hit them. He can’t make sense of the court’s convoluted schemes, but he knows one thing: a country is won on the battlefield, not by kneeling. When the peace faction compromises and grovels, he slams the table and denounces them. Seeing the Song army in disarray, he rolls up his sleeves and reforms it, bringing the essence of the Eighth Route Army’s guerrilla tactics to the misty, rainy south: when the enemy advances, we retreat; when they camp, we harass them. Small units strike their supply routes and destroy their post roads, leaving the Jin, accustomed to grand battles, completely at a loss.
From a small victory in Huaixi to the Northern Expedition of the Longxing era, he uses an iron hand to root out traitors and flexible tactics to tear through the Jin defenses. He also engraves the rule “Do not take even a needle or thread from the people” into the Song army’s very bones, stirring the northern Han people to fight the Jin. When the Jin court begins to falter, he sets his sights farther afield. Western Xia is defiant? He’ll beat them into submission. Dali is watching from the sidelines? He’ll use both kindness and force. He even crosses the sea to intimidate Goryeo and Japan, spreading the seeds of guerrilla warfare across Eurasia.
He is no longer just a regimental commander who knows how to charge into battle. Carrying Li Yunlong’s soul in Zhao Shen’s body, he lays out a game spanning thousands of miles within the palace walls of Lin’an. He won’t settle for a corner of the realm; he wants to unify it. He has his sights set not only on the Central Plains, but on the four seas. Watch how this unruly emperor wields the blade of guerrilla warfare to cut through the Southern Song’s decay, planting the Song banner across the world to the cry of “If they won’t listen, hit them!”
