In the twelfth year of Zhizheng, at a mass grave outside Haozhou.
A soul from six hundred years in the future opened its eyes.
Lu Heng, a promising doctoral student in archaeology, awoke after a laboratory explosion to find himself in the body of a dying refugee boy amid the chaos at the end of the Yuan dynasty. Corpses littered the land, Yuan cavalry slaughtered at will, and Han Chinese lives were worth less than grass. This was the world he had transmigrated into.
If he wouldn't accept his fate, he had to fight for his life.
Relying on his advantage of knowing what was to come, he survived among the rebel armies and was taken in by the Red Turban Army. More importantly, he met Zhu Chongba.
The young man who would go from beggar to monk, from monk to rebel, and from rebel to emperor was still just a captain of nine, with barely a hundred men under his command. But Lu Heng saw it.
He saw eyes sharper than any blade.
Lu Heng chose to stay. Not because he knew Zhu Chongba would become emperor, but because at his side, he could survive, fight, and witness with his own eyes the birth of a magnificent era.
From Haozhou to Chuzhou, from crossing the river to establishing the capital at Jinling, he stayed by Zhu Chongba's side, devising strategies, debating heroes, and experiencing every battle to the death. Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, Li Shanchang, Liao Yong'an... One by one, the generals and ministers who would make their names in the history books rose from humble beginnings before his eyes.
But the prophecies of the Book of Destiny grew increasingly vague.
When Chen Youliang murdered his lord and declared himself emperor five years ahead of schedule, and history quietly veered off the course he knew, Lu Heng finally understood:
He had no golden finger. He had only himself.
In this deadly game of power spanning the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming, his true opponent was the “known future,” constantly changing and falling apart.
Was he a player, or a pawn?
Yes, it's all semi-refreshing writing, the characters are well drawn.