Empire: Eve of Chaos

After three hundred years of the Great Yan Empire, the war in northern Xinjiang has begun. Lu Li, the lowest scout of the Iron-Blooded Legion, discovered the bodies of seventeen comrades during a patrol - they did not die at the hands of their enemies, but were silenced by "one of their own". Military rations were being resold, food routes were cut off, and the Beihu cavalry was about to invade the south. However, in the imperial court, princes were vying for the throne and powerful ministers were fighting against each other. No one cared about the life and death of the soldiers on the frontier. Lu Li just wanted to live. But he soon discovered that living was harder than dying. A short knife engraved with the emblem of the previous dynasty revealed his dusty life experience - he was the last bloodline of the previous royal family and the most feared hidden danger of the empire. Four keys, an underground palace, and treasure enough to support a hundred thousand troops pushed him into the center of the storm. He Lai Wushan, a talented cavalryman from a family with military exploits, worked with him to pull out the poisonous fangs of his collaborators; Bai Yujun, the disfigured and masked former intelligence director, built him a shadowy Yuexiasi; Xiao Xin, the son of a down-and-out businessman, built for him an economic lifeline spanning banks, mines, and workshops. They came from the blood and fire of northern Xinjiang and moved step by step towards the chessboard of the world. Beihu cavalry, assassins from the Western Regions, Baiyue witchcraft, princes seizing the legitimate sons, and vassal towns being separatist - the empire has been torn apart. Lu Li went from being a guard in an isolated city to a warlord in a separatist state, then marrying a princess and conquering the talented female general Jiang Youxue. He swept across the world with the "Golden Lion Army" and finally became the regent. This is not the legend of one person. This is an iron-blooded elegy for an era. If the world is unfair, I will reshape it.