The Jiawu Red Chamber: A Wounded Soldier's Path to the Throne

In the tenth year of Qitai in the Great Han, Zhao Fengnian crawls out of a pile of corpses on the battlefield at Liujing and becomes a deserter.

He never wanted much: to return to his hometown, make a modest living, and spend the rest of his life in peace with a wife and children.

But this is a heavily altered version of the world of Dream of the Red Chamber.

The Jia family makes shoddy guns, the Shi family drinks soldiers' blood, the Wang family draws pay for nonexistent troops, and the Xue family sells fake medicine.

The imperial relatives and the court's nobles treat the common people like grass, all of them hunkering down on this feeble nation and greedily sucking it dry.

Driven into a corner, Zhao Fengnian takes the path of rebellion.

Later, he founds a new dynasty and becomes emperor. The first thing he does is use the law to lock power in a cage.

He leaves behind an ironclad rule for future generations: No matter how tall the imperial palace is built, it must always be an inch shorter than the empire's supreme court. Even the emperor himself must bow his head in respect before the imperial constitution, damn it!

(This book is pure bait and switch. It borrows the setting of Dream of the Red Chamber, but there's little of the garden drama, so read with caution.)

Content warning: The author has terrible manners, and this book is full of profanity. Minors should read with a parent or guardian.