[No System + Historical What-If + Late Tang Power Struggles + Ruthless Action + Political Intrigue and Wits + Light Farming]
In the first year of Guangming, Huang Chao seized Tong Pass, the Tang emperor fled west, and the realm collapsed.
Shen Ci transmigrates into the body of a lowly county commandant in Longmen, Jiangzhou, with nothing to his name.
No soldiers, no food, no money. The city wall has three breaches, and only one old clerk remains in the county office.
Outside the city stands Huang Chao’s million-strong army. Inside, a hungry militia is on the verge of mutiny.
Everyone thinks this pale-faced county commandant won’t live through the night.
Instead, he turns around and executes corrupt officials, imposes military discipline, opens salt mines, and builds defenses along the Yellow River.
With half a sack of refined salt, he recruits his first band of death-defying soldiers. A hundred-mile river embankment holds back Cai Prefecture’s hundred thousand cannibal troops. A wedding secures a salt-and-iron alliance with the Shatuo cavalry.
Zhu Wen is his sworn enemy. Li Keyong is both rival and friend. He forces Li Maozhen to sue for peace by the Wei River, and swears an oath of brotherhood with Wang Jian.
He builds repeating crossbows, trains troops in fish-scale armor, forms a cavalry corps, and takes in a million refugees.
From a county commandant with nothing but his title to Acting Grand Marshal and military governor of two circuits;
from twelve men to fifty thousand cavalry; from a ruined city to fourteen prefectures and two capitals.
Some say he is Liu Bei reborn; others curse him as a treacherous hero of a lawless age.
He only says, “In this chaotic age, people are treated worse than dogs. I’ll carve out a way to survive for everyone who follows me.”
The introduction is too outrageous
Why no rating?
The book is quite good, but the pace is too slow and I don't have the heart to read it.
The rhythm is good, not sloppy, and the ideas are dense!