He chanted chrysanthemums at the age of five and was rarely recognized for his talent. However, he went to Beijing four times to take the exam and failed every time. After failing for the last time, he wrote in a Chang'an wine shop, "When autumn comes on September 8, I will kill all the flowers after they bloom." He tore up the Analects of Confucius and rode his horse back east.
It only took him six years to go from being a private salt dealer to becoming a great general, from conquering Chang'an to proclaiming himself emperor in Hanyuan Hall. However, when he put on his dragon robe and looked down at the people, he found that what he had rebuilt was the very prison he had vowed to destroy.
This book uses Huang Chao's existing poems as spiritual codes to tell the tragedy of how a genius abandoned by the old order resisted, climbed to the pinnacle of power, and was devoured by power. His poems predicted everything—including his own ending.
The characters are written quite realistically