Ten Thousand Men

Ten Thousand Men is a historical time-travel novel by the author Yihou, serialized and completed on Qidian.com starting in 2013. It runs to about 996,000 characters, with nearly four hundred chapters of main text. The story begins in the late Eastern Han dynasty. A modern young man, Cao Xin, dies unexpectedly and wakes up in the body of Cao Anmin, a member of the Cao clan. History records almost nothing about Cao Anmin beyond the fact that he perished alongside Cao Ang at the Battle of Wancheng. For more than a decade, Cao Anmin drifts through the chaos of the late Han, muddling along. Then he realizes that in three years his own death will arrive. At that very moment, his grandfather Cao Song and his father Cao De are about to set out for Xuzhou, where they will soon die at the hands of Tao Qian's subordinates. As Cao Cao hosts a grand banquet for the old lord, with civil and military officials raising their cups in laughter, Cao Anmin bursts into loud weeping at the table and declares outright that "the old lord has not long to live," throwing the whole hall into an uproar. From then on, this petty figure who only wanted to survive the chaos is pushed onto the chessboard of family and state. Relying on his knowledge of history, he maneuvers among Cao Cao, the Cao kinsmen, and the various factions. Starting from saving his family's fate, he gradually takes part in military and political planning, and ultimately helps Cao Cao defeat a larger force with a smaller one at the Battle of Guandu, overturning the balance of power in the north. According to the author, the novel originally planned to unfold many more foreshadowings, but owing to its performance and the pressures of life it was brought to a close after the Guandu arc. This is a Three Kingdoms time-travel novel distinguished by its classical Chinese flavor.