A Tale of Peace in a Chaotic Age

After transmigrating as the son of a salt merchant during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Du Heng wants only to survive.

But the authorities frame his family, and his father is beaten to death in the street. Huang Chao’s rebellion erupts, and the realm boils like a cauldron.

If life is as worthless as grass, then I’ll become the one moving the pieces!

From Yangzhou to Chang’an, I carefully navigate the camps of warlords. I calculate grain supplies for Li Keyong, plan grain transport by water for Yang Xingmi, and even personally deliver the Ode on the Pacification of Huaixi to the required reading list of my enemies.

They fight for the realm; I plot a way to survive, and, along the way, preserve a lifeline for Chinese culture.

When rebel troops set Luoyang ablaze, I risk my life to save not gold or silver, but half a set of Analects printing blocks.

Zhu Wen laughs at me. “In times like these, we need swords. What use is that pile of broken wood?”

Pointing to the literate strategists under his command, I calmly reply, “Without these blocks, there would be no such ministers, and no Later Liang realm for you, Zhu Wen.”

This is the story of an ordinary man who secretly preserves the sparks of civilization beneath the wheels of history.

When Zhao Kuangyin opens the primers I secretly spread throughout the realm, the true answer to ending the chaos will already be written between the lines on every page.