The Chancellor

The Chancellor is an alternate-history web novel by Yin Sanwen, serialized on Qidian and categorized under Historical Fiction: Song, Liao, Jin, and Yuan, running about 433,000 characters and completed around 2015. The story runs from the final years of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms to the founding of the Northern Song: Zhao Zheng, a sharp young lawyer from the modern era, is transported back in time and reborn as a novice monk at the Dingli Monastery ( Dharma name Jiese). On the eve of the Chenqiao Mutiny, using his knowledge of how history unfolds, he persuades Zhao Kuangyin's family not to leave home and thus saves them from arrest by the Later Zhou general Han Tong, earning a chance to meet the new ruler. After returning to lay life, he is sent to Luzhou to protect Princess Fu Li, daughter of Prince Wei Fu Yanqing, and is drawn into Li Jun's rebellion; later he is dispatched as an envoy to Southern Tang, maneuvering among the Song court, Southern Tang, and the remnants of the Ten Kingdoms. The work turns on the theme stated in its title: the zai is the one who rules, the fu is the one who assists. At the critical moment of the candle-shadow and axe-sound and the transfer of imperial power, Zhao Zheng, holding real authority, must choose whether to serve the sovereign with single-minded loyalty or contend for the empire himself. The novel threads the Chenqiao Mutiny, the suppression of Li Jun and Li Chongjin, and the mission to the south into its main line, emphasizing court intrigue and the contest of human wills, and also depicting the open and hidden struggles of Bianliang, the romance of the south, and the clash of arms in the north.