The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms: ninety years of chaos, when the throne belonged to whoever commanded the strongest armies. Dynasties rose and fell like the revolving lanterns of a festival.
Qin Feng, a beggar from Qingzhou, lost both his parents at six and wandered the streets, witnessing every side of human nature. At twelve, unable to afford an education, he secretly studied at a school, where children his own age bullied and beat him. At fourteen, through a lucky coincidence and his own charisma, he won over six peers and formed the core of the “Seven Tigers.”
At sixteen, Qin Feng began laying the groundwork for a grand plan, engineering the collapse of the Northern Three Garrisons and bringing an end to thirty percent of the chaos. At eighteen, his plan succeeded, and his fame spread far and wide. At nineteen, he set in motion a scheme that would end half the chaos. By twenty-two, economic reforms had curbed the turmoil by another half.
Yet the roots of the chaos were far more complicated than anyone imagined. Qin Feng enlisted in the army and rose from centurion to deputy privy commissioner, from strategist to the God of War, and from the God of War to chancellor. Through the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, he witnessed the rise and fall of powerful rulers such as Zhu Wen, Li Keyong, Li Cunxu, Shi Jingtang, Liu Zhiyuan, Guo Wei, Chai Rong, and Zhao Kuangyin.
At thirty-seven, Qin Feng helped Chai Rong reclaim the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun and pacify Southern Tang, uniting the realm. But just as his dream seemed within reach, Qin Feng discovered that the essence of power was not to end chaos, but to create it.
At forty-four, the Chenqiao Mutiny established the Song Dynasty. Qin Feng refused to serve Zhao Kuangyin, withdrew to Zhongnan Mountain, taught his disciple Lin Xiao, and wrote The Essentials of the Military Classics.
Book review of "Wind Rises Mountains and Rivers": An orphaned baby in troubled times uses the wind as a blade to open up thousands of miles of mountains and rivers During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, wars raged in the sky, people died of hunger everywhere, and human lives were like grass. "The Wind Rises the Mountains and Rivers" starts from this darkest scorched earth, and turns the birth of a baby into an epic of blood and tears of survival in troubled times. The protagonist Qin Feng has been besieged by war, famine, and military disasters before he was born. His parents struggled to stay with each other on the edge of life and death, using the humblest persistence to protect him a glimmer of life. From dying in infancy to dying several times in desperate situations, every breath he takes is on the tip of a knife in troubled times, and every survival is filled with the unyieldingness of ordinary people in troubled times. The story does not have the natural sense of trickery, only the shocking reality at every step. The war is chaotic, refugees are everywhere, ferocious beasts are around, and people are suffering from injuries and illnesses. All the desperate situations are layered on top of each other, making the word survival extremely heavy. Qin Laoshi and his wife's life-for-life family affection, the weak but undying goodwill in troubled times, and the silent foreshadowing of the old book, make there always be a resilience hidden in the sad background. The text is desolate and thick, and the picture has a strong sense of imagery. Reading it is like being in the blood and earth of the setting sun, where you can see not only the suffering of the world, but also the glimmer of the human heart. Qin Feng started in the dust and grew up in suffering. His character is hidden in troubled times, and his edge is hidden in silence. Just like the title of the book - starting with the wind, using the heart as the soldier, he will eventually open up thousands of miles of mountains and rivers. This is not only a coming-of-age legend, but also a song of life for ordinary people in troubled times. The more I read, the more heart-wrenching it becomes, the more I read, the more shocked it becomes, and its lasting power makes people unforgettable for a long time.