Fu Han

Fu Han is a long historical novel by the web novelist Liudan Pashui, serialized on Qidian from March 2018 and completed in 2019, totaling about 3.22 million characters. It has won honors including the Top 100 of the 4th Chenggua Online Literature Awards and is archived by institutions such as the National Library of China and the Shenzhen Library. The story begins in the reign of Emperor Ling of Han: Gongsun Xun, a scion of the Gongsun clan of Liaodong, lost his father while still an infant and was raised by his mother, Lady Gongsun. Lady Gongsun is a time traveler, originally from the modern writing world and thoroughly familiar with Romance of the Three Kingdoms; she uses modern knowledge and business methods to build up her son's prospects and often offers him "life guidance." Gongsun Xun himself, however, is a native of the late Han; he learns martial arts, studies the classics under the great scholar Lu Zhi, starts as a minor official in the borderlands, defends Youzhou against the Wuhuan and Xianbei, and rises step by step through military merit and reputation to county magistrate, commandery governor, and general. As the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the Liangzhou Rebellion, Dong Zhuo's entry into Luoyang, and the division of the realm among warlords follow one another, Gongsun Xun uses Youzhou as his base, pacifies the various factions in the chaos, and ultimately takes the Han throne for himself, founding the Yan dynasty and being known in history as Emperor Taizu of Yan. The book is well researched on details of the late Han such as aristocratic clans, the recommendation-based official career, border military garrisons, and taxation and livelihood, and historical figures such as Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Yuan Shao, Dong Zhuo, and Lü Bu each have their own positions and calculations rather than being flat good-versus-evil types. The physical book Fu Han: Volume One is the first volume of the series, collecting the first five arcs of the serialized version in three books.