“A republic does not mean restoring old institutions, nor does it mean having no ruler and letting government descend into chaos. It means ruler and ministers deliberating together on matters of state, officials and commoners alike abiding by the law, and sharing the benefits of the realm with all its people!”
He spoke these words, enough to shake the ages, to Chai Rong before he ascended the throne.
He was a scholar who had escaped death in Khitan territory and returned north, as well as a history doctoral graduate from a thousand years in the future.
With a single remark, he laid bare the root of the chaos of the Five Dynasties. Chai Rong made him a trusted confidant, but died young before his ambitions could be fulfilled.
The world knows of the Chenqiao Mutiny and Zhao Kuangyin’s rise to the throne, but few know that, before the founding of the Great Song, he had already made a secret pact with Zhao Kuangyin to remake the world.
He sought neither to become a powerful minister nor to claim the throne. Relying only on insight far ahead of his time, he gradually embedded the blueprint for a republic into the Great Song realm.
In this chaotic age of warlords, with the Khitans at the border and regional governors ruling as they pleased, watch as he stirs the realm with a single policy paper and forges a new China across thousands of miles!
