On the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month in the first year of Guangming, Huang Chao's army broke through the Jinguang Gate of Chang'an. Seven-year-old Cui Yan huddled in the drainage ditch of Zhuque Street, watching helplessly as Prime Minister Cui Hang was beheaded by the rebel army, and his blood dyed Can Xue red. This Kaiyuan Tongbao he picked up in a panic will witness the most turbulent sixty years of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.
From the small official who drafted the Zen edict in Zhu Wen's "White Horse Disaster" to the white-haired adviser of Zhou Shizong in his northern expedition to Khitan, Cui Yan's figure runs through all the historical scenes that changed China's destiny - in April of the fourth year of Tianyou, he personally witnessed the "Zen Tai" ceremony where Zhu Wen proclaimed himself emperor in Bianliang, and witnessed the deposed last emperor of the Tang Dynasty.
- In October of the first year of Tongguang, he witnessed Li Cunxu establishing the Later Tang Dynasty in Jinyang and recorded the complete process of the "Three Arrows Oath"
- In November of the third year of Qingtai, he braved the rain of arrows and sent "Admonition to the Northern Expedition" to Shi Jingtang's camp, but he could not prevent the cession of the sixteen states of Yanyun.
- In March of the first year of Xiande, he stood on the Gaoping battlefield and watched Zhao Kuangyin lead his army to charge, which changed the national destiny of the later Zhou Dynasty.
This book uses an epic style to reproduce the era when "the emperor would rather have the talent? He who has strong soldiers and horses will do it." When the flames of the Chenqiao Mutiny rose, Cui Yan's life-long book "Government in Troubled Times" had become a treasure book for governing the country in the new dynasty, and the Kaiyuan Tongbao, which had gone through many vicissitudes of life, finally sank into the Bianhe River, like the everlasting memory of this nation.
