Northern Wei: Beacon Fires Across the Six Garrisons

In the fifth year of Zhengguang, the Six Garrisons of Northern Wei rose in revolt. On the night Huaisuo City fell, Shen Yan crawled out from beneath a pile of corpses, clutching half a charred piece of paper and a small silver medicine spoon. He could have gone south, blended in with the refugees, and lived out his days as someone no one remembered. But he had a blade. Twice as heavy as an ordinary saber, its handle worn smooth by a lifetime in someone's grasp: it had belonged to his father. And so a solitary swordsman appeared on the frontier: green robes, a black blade, taking no escort jobs and joining no societies. He righted wrongs, then moved on, never leaving his name behind. From Huaisuo to Baidao, from the Chilechuan plains to the Hetao region, he headed south, and the number of people following him grew ever larger: thirty, three hundred, eighteen thousand, and finally two hundred thousand. Two hundred thousand pairs of eyes looked south. His task was to lead them all alive to the other side of the Great Wall.