This book takes the life of Wei Guangtao (1837-1916), an important minister of the late Qing Dynasty, as the main line, and strives to create the image of a legendary national hero who "went from a cook to the governor of eight provinces". Wei Guangtao is a grandson of the Wei Yuan clan, and together with Wei Yuan, he is known as the "Civil and Military Wei". He joined the army at the age of nineteen and started out as a cook in the Hunan Army. He experienced major historical events such as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Shaanxi-Gansu Rebellion, the recapture of Xinjiang, the bloody battle of Niuzhuang during the Sino-Japanese War, and the Eight-Power Allied Forces.
