During the Jian Ning era of the Eastern Han, the Disaster of the Partisan Prohibitions swept across the land. The Chen family of Yingchuan had built its name on virtue and benevolence, yet was falsely accused of colluding with partisans and brutally slaughtered.
Their ancestor Chen Shi died in prison, and the main branch was decimated. Chen Lin, a young man from a collateral branch, witnessed his kin being killed and barely escaped with his life.
Everyone lamented that the Chen family’s star of virtue had fallen, never to rise again.
After three years in hiding under an assumed name, Chen Lin shed his old meekness and took up the blade of political intrigue, returning to Yingchuan.
He no longer believed in the sages’ books or cared about a spotless reputation. He believed only this: in troubled times, if the family survives, everything survives; if the family perishes, all is lost.
He fought traitors within the family and cleared a century of disgrace;
he joined forces with Yingchuan’s noble clans and broke the encirclement of eunuchs and imperial relatives;
he defied Dong Zhuo’s tyranny and escorted the emperor east;
he entered Cao Cao’s administration and took control of the scholars’ sphere of influence;
he established a system for selecting officials and laid the foundations of the great clans.
Imperial relatives, eunuchs, warlords, Han loyalists, ambitious heroes… They all saw him as a pawn, never realizing that he had long since set a world-shaking plan in motion.
The marriage alliance with the Xun family was his shield;
his mastery of people’s hearts was his blade;
the entire Chen family was the one boundary he would never cross.
As the fires of Red Cliff were about to erupt, the Cao clan prepared to replace the Han, the Han court stood ready to die for its country, and the great clans of the land split apart.
Standing at the summit of power, Chen Lin said calmly, “I don’t seek to rule the land. I only protect the Chen family. Whoever destroys my family, I will destroy his foundations.”
In these troubled times, it doesn’t matter who rules the land. The Chen family of Yingchuan must not fall.
Delicate writing and exciting storyline