Generals die after a hundred battles, and how many ever make it home? In the 23rd year of the Dayong reign, every man of the Kou family gave his life for the country.
The Sh Rong army advanced right up to the capital, Yongjing.
Kou Jingshu stopped her nephew, who was not yet nine, changed out of her fine robes and into armor, and headed for the battlefield.
So what if she was a woman? She could uphold the Kou family name and hold up the empire of Dayong just as well!
Sword energy stretches thirty thousand miles; one blade's light chills nineteen provinces!
In the 25th year of the Dayong reign, Kou Jingshu led the Kou army in driving the Sh Rong beyond the border and reclaiming the lost eighty-nine cities of Xizhong.
On the day she returned in triumph, just as the emperor and his ministers were discussing how to reward Kou Jingshu, she declared that she was willing to give up the merit of saving the nation in exchange for permission to serve in court as a woman.
The emperor was delighted. The Sh Rong were no longer a threat, and Dayong no longer needed a great general whose achievements overshadowed everyone else's. He readily granted her request.
Years later, when someone asked Kou Jingshu why she had made that choice, she said, "The men of my Kou family can die wrapped in their armor, but they must never die because of the schemes of petty courtiers. They deserve justice, and the three hundred thousand innocent Kou soldiers who were wrongfully killed deserve justice, too."
"Anything else?"
"And..." Kou Jingshu smiled. "I personally took this empire back from the Sh Rong. Why should someone else sit on the throne in my place?"
"If I can reclaim the empire, then I can certainly defend it!"
The questioner thought to himself, You call that defending the empire? Give this empress a few more years, and there'll be Kou army banners wherever people live...
In just a few short years, the Dayong empire was overthrown, and the Great Kou Dynasty rose to power. Its founding empress was Kou Jingshu.
But what the world didn't know was that she had once been an ordinary person from another world, forced step by step onto that throne... Everyone saw her strength. Only one person saw how hard she was trying to keep it together.
That day, the victorious army returned, and the people lined the streets to welcome them:
She tilted her head, holding back her tears. By the window, he saw Guanyin, compassion hidden in her gaze.
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