My Son, Liu Jinu of the Eastern Jin

Year 363.

Fu Jian has just taken the throne and only just met Wang Meng, the trusted minister who will become his closest confidant. Murong Chong and Princess Qinghe have yet to "fly together into the Violet Palace";

Huan Wen, Grand Marshal of the Eastern Jin, is at the height of his power and actively campaigning north in pursuit of military glory and the honor of the Nine Bestowments;

Wang Xianzhi of the Wang clan, whose family is remembered in the line "Swallows once nested in the halls of the Wang and Xie families," is still harmoniously married to Xi Daomao. Xie An, of the Xie clan, has only recently "returned from seclusion" and is once again withdrawing from public life;

The Eastern Jin and Former Qin have yet to go to war, and many of the stories in A New Account of the Tales of the World are unfolding right now.

This is the Eastern Jin at its most colorful, an "absurd yet beautiful" moment in time that many later admirers of the aristocratic clans would most want to transmigrate into.

Liu Qiao, a scholar from a humble family, just drifts around the edges of all that color, slacking off.

Liu Qiao's goals: raise a prodigy, stay healthy, and live like the retired emperor behind the throne.

Liu Qiao: "Son, becoming emperor at fifty-seven is far too late. Take a lesson from Emperor Taizong of the Tang next door and unite the realm by twenty-seven!"

Little Liu Yu, pacifier in his mouth, blows a snot bubble, rolls over, and goes right back to sleep.

"By slanting sunlight, over grass and trees and humble lanes, they say that the slave once lived here. In those days, with spears and horses, he swept across ten thousand miles like a tiger."

(Male lead romance, daily life, ensemble cast. Not historically rigorous. If that's not your thing, please don't read.)

Theme: Hoping one's son will become a great man.