The Might of Emperor Jing and Emperor Wu of Han

[Alternate History] [Political Intrigue and Conquest] [The Upheaval of the Five Barbarians]

In the fourth year of Yongchang, the Jie Liang dynasty has ruled for seventy years. The Five-Color Register divides everyone in the realm into five ranks. Han people are listed in the White Register and reduced to the status of cattle and horses. On the walls of Wuwei, the scholar Zhou Yanghao is beheaded for secretly keeping Records of the Grand Historian, his head left hanging high for all to see. Eighteen-year-old conscript leader Lin Jing stands among the crowd, expressionless. He has Liu Yu’s courage and Jia Xu’s cunning, and after years of biding his time, he waits only for the chance to strike.

The Xiongnu invade from the south. Shi Huchen, the Jie Liang commander defending Wuwei, is ambushed and dies of his wounds, leaving the city without a leader. Lin Jing seizes the opportunity to take the city, slaughters the Jie garrison, and raises the banner of “Yiwu.” He cuts taxes, opens military farms, establishes a Hall for Seeking the Worthy, and recruits talent from far and wide. A princess sent by Southern Chu to seal a marriage alliance escapes from her flower carriage and travels thousands of miles to join him. A cavalry commander from the Guanzhong rebel army crosses the Gobi with a spear in hand to pledge himself to Lin Jing.

His army is only beginning to take shape, and enemies surround him on all sides. Shi Changgong, military governor of Zhangye, sends an assassin into the commander’s residence by night, spilling blood in the rear courtyard. The princes of the Jie Liang court turn on one another, Luoyang falls, and the realm teeters on the brink of collapse.

Wuwei may be small, but it is the first city in Han hands. Lin Jing stands beneath the Qilian Mountains, a straight saber in hand. Behind him are three thousand men sworn to justice; before him stretches a realm of ten thousand miles.

In this age of chaos, he will carve out a path to a world ruled by the Han.