The Smoke of War in the Three Kingdoms

In the seventh year of Guanghe, Liangzhou was at peace. On the Qiang market, nine-year-old Cheng Shao noticed that salt prices had risen by thirty percent. That year, Zhang Jue’s holy water was boiling over into a rebellion that would engulf four hundred thousand people. That year, his father set out east with the renowned general Huangfu Song to suppress the rebels, leaving him a sword: “The sword is yours. I’ll tell you the rest when I return.” From the flames of the Yellow Turban Rebellion to Dong Zhuo’s setting sun, from the wheat fields of Guandu to the fires on the Red Cliffs, from the autumn winds of Wuzhang Plains to the blades of Gaopingling, an orphan from a Liangzhou military family carried that sword through sixty years of the Three Kingdoms’ turbulent age. He fought for this realm across three generations, yet it never saved him a seat. He won countless battles, only to watch helplessly as the things he had protected were lost, one by one. This is a Three Kingdoms tale told through the smoke of everyday life: salt prices, soldiers’ pay, letters from home, refugees, horses at the Qiang market, and grain hidden in cellars. It is also the life of a solitary minister: loyalty and betrayal, victory and defeat, holding on and letting go. The smoke of the Three Kingdoms, the lights of ordinary lives. The wind blows in from Xiaoguan, carrying sixty years with it.