A Floating Life in the Late Tang

The year is 878, the fifth year of the Qianfu era under Emperor Xizong of Tang. That year Wang Xianzhi died in battle at Huangmei, and his followers made Huang Chao their leader, styling him "General Who Pierces the Heavens," and turned to fight in the south; Li Keyong killed Duan Wenchu, commander of the Datong army, and rose in rebellion with his father Li Guochang, while Shatuo cavalry plundered Hedong; bandits swarmed across Jiangnan and took prefectures and counties one after another; Henan suffered years of drought and locusts, and soldiers mutinied; and in Chang'an the Son of Heaven still watched cockfights and played ball, ignoring state affairs. The great ship of Tang was sinking. Into this crumbling world falls the soul of a later age, Shao Shude, a man of low rank—merely a squad leader at the Western Surrender City of the Tian De army—who with a few dozen soldiers under his command escorts military supplies and patrols the frontier, scraping a living in the crevices between the Tangut, Uyghur, and Shatuo tribes. Relying on superb archery and strict military discipline, he establishes himself at the Western Surrender City, then follows the army against Li Guochang and his son, distinguishing himself in the bitter fighting at Zhongling River and rising step by step from a minor officer to a frontier general the court cannot afford to ignore. The work begins with the daily life of a low-ranking warrior—military supplies, grain routes, rewards and punishments, marches and battle formations—unfolding the details of cold-weapon warfare one by one; thereafter the flames spread south, the Huang Chao rebellion erupts, Chang'an falls, and the regional commands hoard their own troops. The protagonist builds his base between Lingwu and Xiasui, gathers displaced people, trains Tibetan and Han soldiers, contends with the likes of Li Keyong and Zhu Quanzhong, and finally moves toward ending the chaos and restoring unity. Meticulously researched and rigorously reasoned, the book is one of the representative "serious drama" works of recent historical web fiction.