In the summer of 1993, Li Bufan, an ordinary young man from the twenty-first century, was curled up in his rented room reading web novels when a sudden thunderstorm sucked him into a rift in time and space. When he opened his eyes again, he was lying in a muddy trench. Deafening artillery fire roared in his ears, he wore a tattered uniform, and his hand clutched a rusty Zhongzheng rifle.
This wasn’t the twenty-first century. It was China in 1923, a chaotic age of warring warlords and desperate poverty. His unit was a remnant of the Anhui clique, surrounded by the Zhili warlords and suffering heavy casualties. The original owner of the body was a soldier who had been killed by artillery fire just three days after enlisting. He shared Li Bufan’s name.
Fortunately, Li Bufan found that he had an almost prophetic grasp of how history would unfold: who would win each battle, when each warlord would fall, and which territories would become fiercely contested. This knowledge was his only golden finger in this chaotic world.
He didn’t want to be cannon fodder, much less a hero. He wanted to raise a force that answered only to him in this dog-eat-dog world. First, he would survive. Then, step by step, he would become a true local emperor.
And his first opponent was the ruthless, ambitious deputy company commander, Feng Niannian.
