Xu Sanniang, who lived near the frontier, had not yet come of age when her father promised her to a family in a neighboring village in exchange for two shi of rice. She ran away.
War was raging. Foreign tribes were invading, and the country was divided by internal power struggles. Starving and freezing, Xu Sanniang was mistaken for a man and conscripted.
“Name?”
“Xu... Wei.”
Xu Wei became the lowest-ranking soldier in the army. She was blessed with extraordinary luck and a tenacious will to live. Several times, when her entire unit was wiped out, she crawled out from among the bodies and made her way back to camp. In time, she even became a squad leader.
One day, she found a rusty long saber on the battlefield. She carried it on her back and had to sleep with it in her arms every night to find peace. Then, on a lonely, bleak night of snow, she heard a voice from inside the saber.
“Hey, little girl! Don't die. You've survived all those times before, so you can survive this one too... Would you like to see the capital? You only live once, and if you don't see Shengjing, the most prosperous city in the world, you'd have wasted your life.”
“Who... are you?”
“I was once the emperor of the Great Xia dynasty. My soul is bound to this saber.”
Snow swirled all around Xu Wei. Listening to the woman's voice, Xu Wei remembered how, when she was very young, her mother had told her about an empress from a hundred years ago. Her divine might had shone across the land, yet she died in her prime while personally leading a campaign against foreign invaders.
“All right, Your Majesty. As you wish, I will survive.”
From then on, the person in the saber taught her to read and write, to plan military campaigns, and to wield a killing blade. Xu Wei earned one military merit after another and rose through the ranks, gradually building up her own strength. She told the person in the saber about the Great Xia dynasty's current internal troubles and external threats. The empress was both worried and furious.
Xu Wei didn't tell her that the Great Xia dynasty had completely erased the empress from its historical records. Nor did she tell her that the vast territory of Xia, which the empress had once ruled, had shrunk to just one-third of its former size. The frontier town Xu Sanniang had fled from was once one of Xia's two capitals. Xu Wei only learned this from the empress.
At last, Xu Wei earned the distinction of being summoned to the capital to receive an honor for her outstanding military service. The person in the saber also learned that the historians had erased her from history. Furious, she said, “Come on. Let's see Shengjing a hundred years later and find out what a mess my unworthy descendants have made!”
Xu Wei followed her fellow officers into the palace to receive her honor. She gazed at the high jade steps and the towering palace, which seemed to reach into the clouds. Around her, voices rose like crashing waves, and she could hear her own heartbeat pounding like a drum of war.
The emperor presented her with a sword. “What is your name?”
Her eyes shone with youthful spirit. “Your subject is Xu Wei, courtesy name Jianwei.”
This was the name the empress had given her. She was the true disciple of the Son of Heaven, and she ought to have the resolve to save a collapsing empire.
“To repay the favor shown at the Golden Terrace, I will carry my jade-inlaid sword and die for my lord.”
She had once been the tiniest speck of dust in the world. Now she deserved to see just how vast it was.
She was seventeen that year, and she had begun her ascent into the heart of the empire's power.
She thought, I survived. I will live a long, long life. I will reclaim the lost territory and drive the invaders from our homeland for good, until peace reigns and the land is at rest.
P.S. This is a military progression story. The heroine rises through the ranks, from a common soldier to a powerful regional official, commanding armies and bringing the four corners of the land to heel. She will form her own alliance of women and support a female ruler.
I want to write a heroine who is upright and principled, cares about the whole world, and is full of youthful spirit, with a clear and open heart. She is truly a commoner with no special identity. Because she has experienced the suffering of ordinary people at the bottom of society during wartime, she has the most genuine longing for peace. Her faith comes from her own resilience and that of countless ordinary people. She herself is a precious person.
Blurb dated March 22, 2026
Theme: A love of peace
