Lone Garrison

In the first year of the Zhenyuan era under Emperor Dezong of Tang, eighteen-year-old Zhao Dingbian takes his brother’s place in the army, leaving Tongzhou and traveling thousands of miles west to join the last garrison troops of the Anxi Protectorate.

The year he arrives in Qiuci, the Tibetans cut off the Hexi Corridor, severing all contact between Anxi and Chang’an. He has no idea that he will never make it home again over the next forty-two years.

This is a lonely city forgotten by the world. A red flag edged with flames flies above its walls, red as blood, with the character “Tang” black as charcoal. The garrison shrinks from twenty thousand to three thousand, from three thousand to five hundred, from five hundred to just a few dozen. The reinforcements they have waited for all their lives never come.

But they never surrender.

Zhao Dingbian goes from raw recruit to veteran, then from veteran to commander. His comrades die one by one, and generations of enemies come and go. He meets Sumo Na, a spirited and innocent woman from Qiuci; Li Huaiyu, a Sogdian merchant struggling to survive between two sides; and Guo Xin, the senior protector general who sets out on campaign with white hair. Some stand firm, some betray, some die, and some survive.

Forty-two years later, Chang’an has long since forgotten Anxi, but Anxi has never forgotten Chang’an.

This is not a story about victory. It is a story about doing what must be done, even when you know it cannot be done.