Records of the Han Dynasty's Final Years: Lamplight

In the seventh year of Guanghe, at the end of the Han dynasty, Dong Zhuo plunged the capital into chaos and the realm into turmoil. The warlords of the east raised armies against him, each with their own agenda. Yuan Shao held sway in Hebei, while Cao Cao gathered strength in the Central Plains. Everyone wanted to move the pieces, but no one cared about the countless common folk beneath the board. Lu Yuan, courtesy name Chenzhou, had once been a grassroots emergency-management official. When he opened his eyes, he was an eighteen-year-old in Zhan County, Bingzhou, under the Great Han. His family had passed down the post of county commandant, but his father and older brother had both died in the fighting. The local powerful clans watched him like hawks, and the commandery government refused to issue him even a formal appointment. He had no great army, no reputation, and no backer. All he had was a dilapidated county town and a group of people who didn’t get along but each had their own talents: Han Shao, a former wandering swordsman; Wang Man, an old clerk; Xu Jing, a scholar from a humble family; Zhou Tietou, a taciturn blacksmith; and Madam Xu, a doctor with a sharp tongue and a kind heart. Lu Yuan had no ambitions to conquer the realm. He only wanted the people in his hands to survive. But in a time of chaos, simply staying alive was the greatest ambition of all. He repaired the defenses, compiled household registers, brought the powerful clans to heel, opened markets, forged iron, planted grain, and trained troops. From one county, he came to control half of Shangdang; from one commandery, half of Bingzhou. While others fought over titles, he built roads. While others seized territory, he stored grain. While others vied for the emperor, he made sure the emperor would have a light to guide his way. Years later, when the warlords divided up the realm, they finally realized that a man who had risen from a remote county on the frontier was already standing among them all. He was neither a warlord nor a famed scholar nor a powerful minister. He was the last man carrying a lantern through the chaos. And step by step, he would raise that lantern above the heads of all the people of the world.