In the thirty-eighth year of the Jiajing reign, the Yan family is three years away from destruction.
Standing at this point in time, Yan Shaoqing knows every word written in the history books: Yan Song will be dismissed as chancellor, Yan Shifan will be executed, and the whole family will be exiled, with no one spared.
He wants to run. But after searching through the history books, he discovers one thing:
The Yan family fell, but the Great Ming didn’t fare much better.
The ones who truly dragged the Ming dynasty into the abyss weren’t the Yan faction, but those upright officials who spouted benevolence and righteousness. They used moral blackmail to manipulate the government and public opinion to destroy capable officials, then ran faster than anyone when disaster struck.
If he can’t run, then he’ll fight.
He has three years to walk a tightrope under Jiajing’s watchful eye:
Use the Yan family’s blade to cut down the most dangerous upright officials;
Build his own faction in the gap between the two sides;
Little by little, turn the Yan family’s resources into his own bargaining chips.
Enemies on both sides, suspicion from every direction: one wrong step means plunging into an abyss.
Three years.
That’s enough time for him to turn the tables, or to be doomed beyond redemption.
