Shadows of Heroes in the Qian Mountains

Set in the borderlands of Sichuan and Guizhou during the transition from the Song to the Yuan dynasty, this story centers on the Yang clan of Bozhou. Eighteen-year-old Yang Jingxing, the fierce-tempered young heir with exceptional spear skills, suffers a catastrophe overnight: a Mongol envoy's post station is attacked and burned, and twenty Tibetan merchants are slaughtered. Every clue points to the Yang clan. In truth, Tian Yuan, deputy commissioner of the Pacification Office, has secretly conspired with Song Yu, the Mongol envoy, and framed the Yangs with a vicious plot. He hopes to use the Mongol cavalry to eliminate the Yang clan, which guards Sichuan and Guizhou, and clear the way for a Mongol invasion. Wrongly accused and struck from his clan's genealogy, Yang Jingxing becomes a wanted fugitive with a huge bounty on his head. He is forced to flee with his loyal servant Yang Tiezhu, the young Tibetan Danzeng, and others. Along the way, he meets a one-eyed escort named Cheng Que, Ashima, a woman chieftain of the Luomin people, and a host of other heroes. Little by little, the boy who once knew only how to wield his spear becomes a chivalrous man who understands the way of concealing one's edge. Meanwhile, a secret military map, carried at the cost of their lives by Tibetan merchants, reveals an even greater conspiracy. Mongol Khan Möngke has divided his forces into three routes to invade Shu. One route is making its way through a bribed Luomin chieftain, planning to open the western stronghold on the Chishui River on the twentieth day of the ninth month and let three thousand armored horsemen pour into the heart of Sichuan and Guizhou. A hundred thousand lives hang in the balance. Yang Jingxing has eighteen days to deliver the military intelligence to Diaoyu Fortress in Hezhou, join forces with Luomin patriots inside the stronghold, and break through the western defenses to stop the gates from being opened. This is a journey on which the fate of the nation and its people depends, and a hero's path from personal vendetta toward the welfare of all. The mountains of Guizhou rise high, and the Wu River flows wide. When the young man's spear first draws blood for strangers from elsewhere, a story of loyalty, growth, and protection begins to unfold amid the mountains and rivers of the southwestern frontier.