A Chaotic Age: A Poor Farmer in Ma Chu, I Crown Myself Sheng

No System, no transmigration, no rebirth. Alternate history, vying for supremacy and building an agrarian empire, rival powers rise to contend for the Central Plains. From poor farmer to emperor.

(Slow-paced, realistic style, developing agriculture while fighting for dominion over the realm.)

This is the story of a young man who rises step by step from humble beginnings, and of the rise and fall of a real dynasty.

Tong Liu has no surname and no given name. He is the sixth child, the son of a tenant farmer outside Changsha, the capital of Ma Chu, also known as Tanzhou.

He walks barefoot through the mud, pays the landlord his rent, and has too little grain left to last until spring. He thinks this is all his life will amount to: farming, paying rent, going hungry, and dying one winter that no one will remember.

Until the winds of chaos reach Changsha, or Tanzhou.

Ma Chu is decaying, the Seven Kingdoms are divided, and the Five Dynasties rise and fall. Emperors in the Central Plains change as quickly as figures in a revolving lantern, while the southern warlords all harbor their own schemes. Tong Liu is seized for military service and dragged from the fields into the chaos of war.

But he refuses to accept his fate.

He rises from a poor farmer to a soldier, then a general, and then a warlord.

He names his state Dasheng and his reign Huanglong: Sheng means the sun rising from humble beginnings, while Huanglong means fire shining in the heavens and jade resounding across the earth.

He declares, "I name my state Dasheng. If you don't accept it, come and fight!"

This is not the real era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. It is a chaotic age that belongs to Tong Liu. The Five Dynasties of the Central Plains change like figures in a revolving lantern, the surrounding Seven Kingdoms each harbor their own schemes, and the cavalry of the Shatuo, Khitan, and Tangut tribes watch hungrily from the north. Meanwhile, in the Jing-Chu region of the south, a man who isn't even worthy of a name is crawling out of the mud, ready to devour the entire realm.

From the field ridges to the imperial throne, he digs out every step of his own path.