Blood for China

Blood for China is an alternate-history novel by the web author Western Spider and the second installment in the "Iron-Blooded China" series, also known as the "Iron-Blooded Trilogy," following Blood and Fire, Rivers and Mountains and preceding Blood Soaking the Xuanyuan. Approximately 1.85 million characters long, it was first serialized on Qidian Chinese Network and completed as a VIP work, accumulating over three million clicks along with twenty thousand bookmarks and one thousand monthly tickets. Set in the final years of the Southern Song dynasty, the novel revolves around the weighty proposition that "China ended after Yamen." The protagonist, a former special forces soldier, travels back in time to the late Song armed with a treasured saber, arriving just as the Mongol army sweeps south to annihilate the dynasty. He begins as a mere infantry commander stationed at Changzhou, a city that in history was massacred after its fall, leaving only seven survivors. Facing certain death, he chooses to fight to the last, leading his men to hold the city and repel the attackers, thereby earning prestige in the army, seizing power, and training a new force under the rallying cry "Expel the barbarians and restore China." He later leads his troops in a breakout and, after the fall of the Southern Song, establishes himself in Fujian, builds a Han army, and accumulates strength through maritime trade and external resources while biding his time to march north and reverse the course of history. The work continues the author's signature "iron-blooded" style, with dense battle scenes and tight pacing, focusing chiefly on military life and patriotic devotion. It was a popular Song-era time-travel power fantasy from the late 2000s to the early 2010s. Because it was written relatively early, its narrative approach and character development bear clear hallmarks of early web fiction.