Your Majesty, Please Issue the Death Decree

When modern munitions engineer Wei Zheng opened his eyes, he had become cannon fodder in a death-row camp on the northern frontier of the Great Yong, waiting to be used to fill the moat. Below the walls stood a hundred thousand grassland cavalrymen. Inside the city were corrupt officials, eunuchs, and heretics. Far away in the capital, the emperor was busy digging graves for the twenty-one provinces. Wei Zheng only wanted to survive, but step by step, with mathematics, gunpowder, and an understanding of human nature, he carried the coffin prepared for the people of the realm all the way to the throne hall. “Your Majesty, it's time to mourn.”