The Rise of a Frontier Soldier

Frontier Dust, Dragon’s Path

When the frigid northern wind carried the stench of blood over the city walls, Qin Ming tightened his grip on a rusty ring-pommeled saber. He was fourteen that year, the most insignificant auxiliary soldier in the frontier army. Every day, he chopped wood and carried water, and could only tremble as he watched his comrades fight beneath the city walls.

The day the barbarians broke through the pass, the centurion shoved a bloodstained command token into his hands. “Hold this banner.” For the first time, Qin Ming swung his blade and cut down an enemy. The blood splashed across his face, somehow hotter than the freezing wind.

After crawling out of heaps of corpses again and again, Qin Ming became the squad leader boldest in battle, leading twelve men to break through enemy lines. When he was promoted to commandant, it took him three years to wear down the barbarian royal court’s winter offensive. The year he received the seal of the General Who Guards the North, he built a ten-li line of fortifications on the frozen border river, keeping the enemy beacons beyond the Great Wall.

When turmoil erupted in the capital, he led his troops south, their iron hooves crushing the mansions of the powerful ministers. In the Golden Chime Hall, the abdication edict of the former emperor drifted to the floor. The boy who once could barely hold a blade had finally seized the power of the realm.