Fierce Kinsmen

Fierce Kinsmen is the concluding work of web novelist Geng Xin's "Three Kingdoms Trilogy" (following The Ruthless Han and The Cao Thief). It began serialization on Qidian Chinese Network in May 2013, runs about 2.5 million characters, and is complete. The story enters at the first year of Jian'an in the Eastern Han: Liu Chuang, a modern county civil servant, rises in fury to avenge the murder of a friend's family by the powerful, and after execution his soul crosses into the late Eastern Han, into the county of Qu in Donghai Commandery, possessing a prisoner of the same name who has been falsely accused of murder. He gathers people under the name "Imperial Uncle of the Han," brings together generals such as Zhang He, Gao Lan, and Taishi Ci, forms marriage alliances with great local clans such as the Mi family of Xu Province, and expands step by step through a series of major late-Han events—the Xu Province rebellion, the management of Qing Province, the Battle of Guandu—ultimately growing from a prisoner into a ruler capable of rewriting the realm's configuration. The work uses the Records of the Three Kingdoms and other historical sources as its base, attends to details of offices, geography, military systems, and battle formations, and strives for period texture in forms of address and customs; historical figures such as Liu Bei, Lü Bu, and Cao Cao are also written with sides different from popular impressions. As for the title, han denotes the ferocity of those who establish themselves by arms in a chaotic age, while qi denotes the sorrow of kin scattered and separated beneath weapons; the two interweave as the book's basic undercolor.