Blurb:
The Son of Heaven of Wei, Yuan Yi, has a secret she cannot tell anyone.
She was born a girl.
The Empress of Wei, Shen Lusheng, also has a secret he cannot tell anyone.
He was born a boy.
Every day, Yuan Yi sits on the throne in the Taiji Hall, while Shen Lusheng diligently crouches behind it, supplying her with a voice.
"I just want to know whether Erzhu Rong has crossed the Yellow River," she thinks.
"Has Erzhu Rong crossed the Yellow River?" he asks the ministers for her. "You know, that chief of the Qihu people. Has he crossed the river yet?"
The female lead is modeled on Yuan the Maiden of Northern Wei, the first female emperor in history.
Yuan the Maiden succeeded to the throne at one month old, ruled for just one day, and then vanished into the currents of history.
And Empress Dowager Hu, who had put her on the throne, was thrown into the Yellow River by Erzhu Rong just over ten days later.
So everything that follows is entirely made up by me.
Let's see how this empress and her male empress consort can overcome the looming shadow of Erzhu Rong, quell internal strife, repel foreign enemies, restore order at court, and complete Emperor Xiaowen's unfinished project of sinicization!
**
Hu Po is a history student at Yanjing University.
If someone asked her what she regretted about history, she would say that history is the perfect outcome of fate and circumstance, driven by all the conditions at play. So history has no regrets.
Although history has no regrets, she does.
Her regret comes from memories of her previous life.
In her previous life, she was an ordinary farmer in Dingzhou.
Around that time, many refugees moved into the village one after another.
Her mother said there was a great famine in Huaishuo, and the court had moved all the Hu people into the Central Plains.
The Hu people didn't know how to farm. They carried swords and robbed other people's homes instead.
When summer came, disaster struck Dingzhou too. First came drought, then locusts, and the crops yielded nothing.
The family had run out of food long ago. They lay listlessly on their mats, waiting to die.
Then someone knocked at the door.
Her mother struggled to her feet. Outside stood a Hu man, holding a scrawny little boy by the hand.
"He's the youngest in my family. I'll trade him for the youngest in yours." His gaze was like a knife as it fixed on Hu Po. "Her."
Her mother let out a wail and threw herself toward Hu Po. "No! We won't trade... Even if we starve to death, we won't trade her..."
The warrior left the boy where he stood, scooped Hu Po up, tucked her under his arm, and swaggered away.
A friendly reminder:
1. This is not a matriarchal society. The story is set within the framework of Northern Wei.
2. The female lead transmigrates from ancient times to the present, then returns to the past.
Theme: What does it mean to be "great" in the annals of history?
