Being a soldier is just a job. When the lord can't pay, the centurion takes the whole squad and runs. When a battle pits them against an opponent neither side wants to fight, the heavy infantry in the front ranks on both sides just scratch away at each other's armor. Afterward, both armies set up cooking pots and eat together, asking one another, "Did you get a scratch on your armor?" and "Did you add too much salt?" The Imperial Army's rules are simple: switch employers when your contract expires, pick your share of the spoils first, and don't give a damn about your lord's personal grudges. Ku Gensheng, a farm boy from a poor mountain village whose family could barely keep food on the table, was sent into the army for twenty gold coins. He went from a new recruit who was afraid to serve himself an extra helping, to a seasoned infantryman who could hurl stones from atop a city wall, and finally to a veteran who returned home with twenty thousand gold coins after his discharge and built a railway. He fought in sieges, stabbed barbarians, and caught a veteran's javelin in the middle of street fighting. He had no grand ambitions. He just wanted to survive and go home to farm. But surviving alone was already quite an achievement.
The style of this book varies quite a bit. There are absurd parts: running from a fake battle, clobbering the empress from behind. And there are heavy parts: the terrible casualties of a siege, and an old flute player who played his flute all his life, only to die playing on the front lines. There are heartbreakers, and there is sweetness. If you suddenly stop laughing at a certain chapter, don't blame me. Blame yourself for taking it too seriously.
