Li Yu, a top modern history student, opens his eyes to find himself Li Congjia, the Sixth Prince of Southern Tang. Before him is poisoned wine from his elder brother, the crown prince; in his mind lie complete memories of the dynasty’s fall and a treasury of poetry.
It is the year his father dies. A powerful neighbor demands tribute, the court is rotten, and the army is exhausted. The history books say he will be the doomed ruler who “did not know in his dream that he was a guest,” ending half a lifetime of folly with a cup of poison on the Qixi Festival.
But this Li Yu is not that Li Yu.
He will use poetry as his eyes to see through the darkness in people’s hearts, and lyrics as his blade to cut down every demon and monster. More than that, he will wield the emperor’s sword and restore this shattered realm!
When Zhao Kuangyin dons the imperial yellow robe, believing that Jiangnan can be conquered with a single proclamation, he finds a very different opponent waiting when his forces reach the city walls.
On the walls of Jinling, the ruler once mocked as “fit only to sing of the breeze and moon” stands in armor, his sword pointed north:
“My realm will not yield a single inch. If you want war, then let the Yangtze run red with blood!”
This is a defiant gamble against a fate whose ending is already known. From peerless poet-emperor to iron-blooded sovereign, he will use an entirely new set of rules to rewrite the final chapter of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.
