What's Wrong with Using the Xie Surname?

Zhang Ming, a PhD in history, transmigrated one day and opened his eyes to find himself lying in a mass grave outside Jiankang. The knife wound in his chest had yet to heal, and the corpse collectors had already looped a straw rope around his neck. All he could do was claim the surname of a dead man: Xie. The Xie clan of Chen commandery was a great family of Jiangzuo. The identity of a distant branch family member became his only protection in this age of aristocratic clans. But the original owner's death was no accident: a brawl between aristocrats on the banks of the Qinhuai River and a bloodstained strip of cloth bearing the character "Shen" dragged Zhang Ming into a deadly game spanning both the imperial court and the underworld. In the eleventh year of Yongming, the crown prince had just died, Emperor Wu was nearing the end of his life, and Northern Wei was moving its capital nearby. In these perilous times, how could an impostor bearing the Xie name, a man of humble origins, survive to the very end in Jiankang, a city rife with flashing blades?