Xiao Yao, a Peking University doctoral student specializing in Sui and Tang history, had devoted her life to studying the rise and fall of the Sui dynasty. Yet on the night she finalized her dissertation, her soul traveled through time into the body of the most tragic empress in history, Empress Xiao.
Back in the second year of Kaihuang, she was still an overlooked, lowly concubine in the Prince of Jin’s household. Ahead lay the shadowy struggle for the throne and deadly schemes within the imperial palace; behind her loomed the tragic fate of a Sui dynasty that would perish in its second reign.
In her previous life, she had been gentle and patient, watching her country collapse and drifting through an age of chaos until she became no more than a fallen leaf on the currents of history.
In this life, armed with a millennium of historical knowledge and seemingly impossible foresight, she would no longer let others dictate her fate.
She would outmaneuver the other concubines, secure the imperial harem, help Yang Guang claim the throne, end tyranny, and win the people’s hearts. As a woman, she would save the Sui dynasty from collapse.
She would defeat the Turks in the north and unite the Western Regions, campaign against Goguryeo and Fusang in the east, unite all under heaven, and welcome envoys from every land.
From discarded concubine in the inner palace to regent empress, from uncrowned empress to sovereign of the Sui, she would command the dragon as the phoenix, rewrite history, and forge an unprecedented golden age under a woman emperor.
In this life, she would not be an empress dependent on the emperor. She would be a co-ruler who held the world in her hands!
The perspective is unique. I have read many Sui and Tang Dynasty novels, but the female protagonist's perspective is rare.