Five Millennia of Imperial Stars

This is an alternate history of Chinese civilization, spanning more than three thousand years, from 2070 BC to 1368 AD. Xia Qi founded the realm, Shang Tang overthrew the old order, and the Zhou ruled through enfeoffment, yet the realm was never truly unified. The Wu Dynasty rose in the southeast and confronted the Zhou court, ushering in an age of rival lords. Western Zheng grew powerful for a time, destroying Western Liang, Hanzhong, Great Yan, Dayuan, Baekje, the Qiang and Yi tribes, and Southern Rong. But its reckless expansion sparked a rebellion in which forty-seven kings stood against one another, ultimately splitting the realm.

The Great Kang Dynasty brought an end to the age of chaos, annexing the Xin Dynasty and the remnants of Western Zheng, but the Rebellion of the Eight Princes left it gravely weakened. Great Cao succeeded it, campaigning west against Tibetan Fan and expanding its territory by thousands of miles. The Great Qian Dynasty was the most mysterious. Legend says it began in the early Xia era and endured for three thousand years without falling. It once campaigned east against the Hu lands and destroyed the Demon Kingdom, yet it suddenly collapsed at the height of its power. The Great Chu Dynasty took its place, but after ruling for one hundred and sixty years, it plunged into a century of darkness.

Eastern Zheng briefly revived, only to repeat the fate of Western Zheng. The Rebellion of the Twelve Kings split its territory into twelve states. At last, Great Zhao rose from the steppes, its iron cavalry sweeping south to unify the Central Plains and establish the final feudal empire. It endured until the flames of war at the end of the Yuan and beginning of the Ming buried it. Five dynasties rose and fell in turn, their cycles of prosperity and decline weaving heroes and tyrants, golden ages and times of chaos into a sweeping alternate-history epic.