Modern corporate drone Chen Shu wakes up as a defeated border soldier, with nothing beside him but half a sack of hardtack and a camp full of starving corpses. He claws his way through mountains of bodies and seas of blood, saving a captain and killing an enemy general. He rises step by step from squad leader to captain, only to discover that he is nothing but a discarded pawn on the powerful elite's chessboard. The strategist Zhao Xuance tells him, “General, if you want to survive, you must make the whole world fear you.” So Chen Shu begins raising a private army, establishing trade routes, and forging alliances with the grasslands, carving a path through the chaos in blood. When Third Prince Xu Zhaoming sends him poisoned wine, Chen Shu smashes the cup and sneers, “I'll take the throne for myself!”
