The Tianshu Calamity: Fifty Years in the An Lushan Rebellion

A private manuscript of celestial observations, mistakenly rumored to be a “star chart that can predict a nation’s fate,” passes between the Tang court, the puppet Yan state, the Uyghurs, and the Hebei warlords during the eight years of the An Lushan Rebellion. The junior clerk of the Bureau of Astronomy who possesses it is forced to spend his life answering a question left behind by his grandfather: Should celestial signs reflect human affairs?