Three Kingdoms: Dong Bai

(Ensemble cast + female protagonist + empress + historical strategy and deduction + true to official history)

This novel recreates the warlords’ struggle for supremacy at the end of the Han dynasty on the surface, with an ensemble cast, while its hidden storyline revolves around suppressing Zuo Ci and restoring the Han dynasty’s fortune. Together, these threads tell a historical story with a reasonably consistent logic.

(Ensemble cast. If you don’t enjoy historical fiction from a female protagonist’s perspective, you can go straight to the hidden storyline. All chapters in that storyline are marked “Hidden Chapter,” and the story is just as compelling.)