A Commoner Saves the Capital from Ruin

The fourteenth year of Yongchang in the Great Sheng dynasty.

A border garrison officer froze to death atop the city wall. When his mother went to demand an explanation, the constables beat her. The army pay allocated by the court dwindled to just thirty percent by the time it reached the frontier. The Prince of Jingbei paid out of his own pocket to provide winter clothes for his soldiers, and the court sent an imperial censor to investigate him for misusing military funds.

He raised an army. Not to seize the throne, but to purge corrupt advisers, force the ruler to reflect, and keep the crumbling Great Sheng dynasty intact.

Shen Xiang, a scholar from a small town, headed to the capital to sit the imperial examinations. He had never seen a city as vast as Chang'an, where all sorts of people could make a living on the streets. He wanted to place on the list of successful candidates and give his parents a reason to hold their heads high back home.

On the night the rebel army stormed into Chang'an, Shen Xiang was whipped across the back and left sprawled in a muddy ditch. The Analects lay open before him to the page that read, "To see what is right and not do it is to lack courage." Nearby, an old woman lay on the ground, with no one to help her up.

He got to his feet. Just a commoner, trying to help someone rise on the night the capital fell.