In the thirty-first year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang, founding emperor of the Great Ming, died deep within the palace.
When he opened his eyes again, he heard the cold clatter of iron armor. Before him stood Zhao Gao and Li Si, holding a “final edict” whose ink had not yet dried.
He had taken over Hu Hai’s body: history’s first great wastrel. It was hell from the start.
At the Sand Dune Palace, the First Emperor’s body was not yet cold. A forged edict ordering his eldest son, Fusu, to die was ready. The spears of three hundred thousand frontier troops had secretly turned in a new direction, waiting for the puppet prince to stamp the fatal seal.
No System, no cultivation, no famous generals ready to bow at his feet.
Only a frail, poisoned body, and a soul that had clawed its way out of a beggars’ den and once ruled the realm.
Zhu Yuanzhang took the bamboo slips and wiped a finger across the wet ink. He asked only one thing:
“The edict hasn’t even dried. What are you in such a hurry for?”
The short blade in Zhao Gao’s sleeve hit the ground with a clatter.
From that moment on, a new player took the seat at the board of the Great Qin.
Zhao Gao wanted to prop him up as a puppet over a blazing furnace. Li Si wanted to bind his hands and feet with Qin law. No one knew who held the keys to the gates of Xianyang Palace, and laborers at Mount Li were dying in droves every day. Chen Sheng and Wu Guang had already raised the first cry of rebellion, while Xiang Yu was honing his Overlord Halberd.
And Liu Bang, the head of Sishui Pavilion, another potential rival who had risen from humble beginnings, was the one he watched most intently.
The Qin has lost its deer, and all under Heaven are chasing it.
This time, the man seated at the board understood the cruelest truth of its rules.
With the roughest wisdom and the most practical methods, he would perform an operation to scrape away the poison and cure this tottering empire, despite starting from an utterly hopeless position.
[No System, not a wish-fulfillment story, hard-core historical intrigue, an ultimate battle of wits]
