In the chaotic late Tang, warlords carve up the realm and the people are plunged into misery. During a century’s worst flood in Boye County, Hebei, the dragon son Baxia carries a woman through the waves and returns the child in her arms: Song Wentong, later bestowed the name Li Maozhen.
Born into obscurity and raised amid chaos, he rises from a commoner on the Zhulong River to rule Fengxiang and dominate the northwest. From a loyal, courageous general who earns merit protecting the emperor to the lord of the Qi Kingdom who enters Chang’an three times and sets his sights on all under heaven, he becomes a legend among the people even as the empire burns down to its final embers. He once turns the tide, and at other times holds the emperor hostage to command the feudal lords.
In an age of chaos, everyone drifts like duckweed in a flood.
But he is determined to make his own way through this broken land.
Will he rise with the tide or defy his fate? Will he prop up the failing Tang court or build a hegemony in Longxi?
It all begins with Baxia in the floodwaters, and the words it speaks, like a prophecy...
A grounded epic of common-born heroes forged in the blood and fire of the late Tang.
A sweeping chronicle of chaos, weaving uncanny legends with the hard strokes of history.
In The Tang Dynasty’s King Qin, Li Maozhen, history provides the bones and folk legends the soul, telling the epic of a true dragon borne by the floodwaters, stirring the storm clouds of a dying age.
Boye County's first local historical novel, 👍👍👍👍👍👍