War Smoke over Xuanwu: The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

After transmigrating to the turbulent Five Dynasties era, Chen Yan becomes a low-ranking soldier in the Xuanwu Army in Bianliang. There are no martial arts skills that can defeat ten thousand men here, only the brutal rule that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” There is no System to catapult him to success overnight, only the deadly edge of mutinous, battle-hardened soldiers demanding rewards.

His golden finger is a modern understanding of organization and institutions. While others establish their reputations through slaughter, he uses military manuals and a points system to unite the troops. While warlords plunder to survive, he lays a solid foundation with farming settlements and workshops. Starting by reforming a battalion of worn-out soldiers, he carves out the first pocket of order in a land divided by warlords, one that prizes “discipline over plunder.”

But the chaotic age is a furnace, burning ambition and morality alike. As his military principles, far ahead of their time, bring him to prominence, he catches the attention of heroes like Guo Wei and is inevitably drawn into historic contests with warlords such as Zhu Wen and Li Cunxu. From the barracks of Bianzhou to the struggle for supremacy over the Central Plains, he must answer the age’s cruelest question in his own way: In an abyss where might makes right, can anyone forge a different path and rebuild the backbone of civilization in this broken world?

This is a story about how order emerges from chaos, and how ideals take root in reality.