The Rivers, Mountains, Wind, and Moon of the Five Dynasties

When autumn comes, on the eighth day of the ninth month, my flowers bloom and all others die; their fragrance pierces Chang'an, and the city is clad in golden armor. Huang Chao raises his arm, and the Tang Dynasty, once famed throughout the ages, crumbles. The chaotic era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms begins, when battles are commonplace and victory and defeat vanish like smoke.

At the tail end and height of this turbulent tide, in the years between the Later Zhou and Northern Song, Shi Congyun already knows of Emperor Shizong of Zhou's extraordinary talent and Zhao Kuangyin's rise to the throne. He has heard of the Later Zhou's two famous consorts, and knows of Lady Huarui of Later Shu.

The Central Plains are divided among rival powers, while the Khitan loom menacingly in the north.

As heroes gather and the world is turned upside down, Shi Congyun must find a way to survive the chaos with his big old man, who grows muscle but not brains.

Step by step, he grows from a nobody with no grand ambitions, who only wants to survive these troubled times, into a lord with the world in his grasp...

(The protagonist doesn't always play by the rules. Righteous busybodies, enter at your own risk.)