Reborn in the Early Years of the Republic

Xu Yong, a business executive from the 21st century, was in a car accident after drinking with a client on the night of his fortieth birthday. When he woke up, he found himself lying on a hard bed at the Baoding Military Academy in 1905, now an ordinary officer in the Beiyang New Army.

With knowledge and foresight beyond his time, he made a name for himself in campaigns against bandits and crossed paths with Wu Peifu, who had just graduated from the Beiyang Rapid Military Preparatory School. Beneath the walls of Wuchang, he witnessed the flames of revolution and the collapse of the old order. When the Republic was founded, he commanded a regiment and struggled to survive amid the chaos. During the National Protection War, he switched sides to oppose Yuan Shikai. In the Second Revolution, he played both sides. As the warlords battled for power, he maneuvered among them until, with the Beiyang government split and rival leaders rising everywhere, he seized a key province in the northwest and established a power base of his own.

As the Northern Expedition swept across the Central Plains and Zhang Xueliang declared the Northeast's allegiance to the Nationalist government, Xu too completed the country's nominal unification under the Nanjing government’s flag. Yet this warlord, whom Chiang Kai-shek called the “Northwest Rock,” was secretly in contact with the Communist Party, walking a tightrope between the cave dwellings of Yan'an and the government offices of Nanjing.

The gunfire of the September 18 Incident jolted the nation awake, and the shots of the Xi'an Incident shook the halls of power. As the flames of resistance spread across China and the Nationalists and Communists once again headed for a split, this soul from the future would make his own choice at history’s crossroads.

This is the story of an ordinary man struggling to survive and proceeding one careful step at a time through a turbulent age. It is also the story of a modern soul searching for a place to belong amid a century of upheaval.