General Xiao Tieyi, the Defender of the North, was falsely accused of treason. With three thousand personal guards, he fought his way out and fled to the barbarous frontier. Over the next ten years, he brought the tribes of the grasslands under his rule and founded a kingdom of iron cavalry. When a hundred thousand riders stood at the city gates, he did not seek revenge for the past. Instead, he asked the trembling emperor on the Dragon Throne, “Would you like to try living another way?” This is a political epic of conquest, strategy, court intrigue, and revenge, telling how a betrayed man used the edge of his sword as a brush to rewrite the rules of the realm.
