Under All Heaven

Under All Heaven is an alternate-history web novel by Xiao Shenke 117, serialized on Qidian Chinese Network. Zhao Cheng, a first-year history major, unexpectedly travels back to 1206 and appears near Genghis Khan's great tent; thereafter he grows up on the Mongolian grasslands as a Han youth, and the main storyline unfolds roughly from the spring of 1218. The work sets its stage in the peak era of the Mongol Empire's rise: the protagonist deals successively with Mongol nobles, Western Xia, the Jin state, the Southern Song, and various powers of the Western Regions, traveling through a Eurasian world where shamanism, Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Christianity, and other faiths coexist. While serving as an adviser beside Genghis Khan and his followers and witnessing the empire's expansion, he secretly builds his own strength; loyalty and rebellion, massacre and pardon, marriage alliances and campaigns, family feuds and the distribution of power are interwoven layer upon layer. The work's focus is not simply the thrill of conquest, but how a person judges, bets, and lays plans in the crevices of a vast empire. The book runs about 1.72 million characters in more than 400 chapters, composed of volumes such as "Killing Intent in Spring," "Below Burkhan Khaldun," and "Taohuashi," with a time span extending from the Mongol western campaigns all the way to the struggle for the Central Plains. The author's prose is calm and clearly organized, with detailed elaboration of grassland customs, tribal relations, and the course of war; it is an alternate-history novel themed on "how an individual establishes a footing under imperial order."