Grand Prospects in a Chaotic Age

Grand Prospects in a Chaotic Age is a long historical novel by Jiutu, serialized on 17K.com and completed in July 2017. It runs 534 chapters and about 1.6376 million Chinese characters, and is the first installment of the author's planned "Song Dynasty Trilogy" (the traditional Chinese edition was published in six volumes by Taiwan's China Times Publishing). Set against the fragmented military governorships of the late Tang and Five Dynasties, it begins in 907 when Zhu Wen usurps the Tang throne and founds the Later Liang, moves through the rise and fall of the Later Tang, reaches the Khitan invasion and the fall of the Later Jin around 947, and continues through the successions of the Later Han and Later Zhou, unfolding a semi-alternate-history narrative within a framework of real history. The central figure is Shi Yanbao, second prince of the Later Jin. With his country destroyed and his family lost, he wanders among the common people, loses his memory, and takes the name Zheng Ziming (in folk legend, the sworn brother of Chai Rong and Zhao Kuangyin), yet various factions still treat him as a pawn to be used. Held captive in Taiyuan under the identity of "second prince" by the Later Han, he escapes with the help of his childhood sweetheart and is swept into the vortex of history. Beginning with the question "who am I," he gradually puts down roots in a corner of the land and builds a base that shelters refugees and resists bandits, warlords, and Khitan cavalry, until at last he commands a great army and contends for the realm. He also seeks to trade military power for political stability by decentralizing authority and persuading his generals to relinquish command, searching for a way to end the chaos. The novel takes Du Fu's line "Would that a strong man could pull down the Milky Way and wash our armor clean, never to be used again" as its guiding theme, layering the struggles among local strongmen, bandit strongholds, warlord soldiers, and the steppe empire, depicting both the killing and the humanity of a chaotic age and the efforts of ordinary people to defend their homes. In 2016 it was selected for the annual China Online Novel Rankings (for unfinished works) and has been praised by critics as a "relatively complete historical novel" with grounded storytelling that displays Jiutu's distinctive historical insight.