I woke beneath a crooked-neck tree, clutching a broken rope, with a three-sided military dagger tucked at my waist. Outside the city were a hundred thousand rebels; inside, only three thousand battered soldiers remained. The eunuchs urged me to flee south. The ministers urged me to surrender. I laughed. In my previous life, I was a special forces soldier. I’d never fought a battle I was certain to lose.
In three days, I redeployed our defenses, turning the imperial city into a meat grinder with modern tactics.
In one night, I sent a suicide squad down the walls to burn the rebel army’s granaries.
One sentence, “I will live, and I will win,” rallied the scattered troops.
Gao Lie, the rebel commander, called up from beneath the walls: “Hand over the keys, and I’ll spare your life.”
I gave him a one-word reply: “Get lost.”
With a hundred thousand cavalry from the Canglang Khanate watching hungrily from the north, the eunuch faction in court scheming to get rid of me, and everyone waiting to laugh at this puppet emperor, I did just one thing: I put a knife to Wei De’an’s neck and asked where the granary keys were.
This is not the story of a ruler watching his country fall.
It’s the story of a special forces soldier using modern military wisdom to cheat his way to victory in ancient times.
Three thousand defeating thirty thousand is just the beginning.
The real war lies ahead.
