Shen Zhiyu's Map of Troubled Times

In 907, Zhu Wen proclaimed himself emperor and the Tang Dynasty came to an end. Shen Zhiyu woke up in Bianzhou with no household registration and no copper coins. He only had a brain full of the history of the Five Dynasties and a pair of eyes that could read maps. He looked for food first, then for a map, and finally for a backer. A bowl of sheep soup cake allowed him to see millions of stones of military rations behind the Bian River; a modified ration book sent him to Luzhou Jiazhai; a way out for the defeated soldiers made Li Cunxu keep an eye on him. From Zhu Wen to Zhao Kuangyin, from Bianhe to Qiantang, from Youyun to Jinyang, he spent seventy-two years drawing six maps, and finally understood: the map never speaks for anyone, only the person who gets the map does. Seventy-two years later, the people who knew him have changed for three generations, but he is still the same as when he woke up in 907.