Prologue

In the year 907 AD, Henry Carter forced the sixteen-year-old last emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Samuel Thompson, to abdicate. He ascended the imperial throne in Kaifeng, establishing the state of Liang.

That same year, the Military Governor of Fengxiang and King of Qi, Charles Thompson, allied with the Military Governor of Hedong and King of Jin, Robert Thompson, and the Military Governor of Xichuan and King of Shu, James Harris, to raise troops against Liang, vowing to seek justice for the last Tang emperor.

In regions such as Lingnan, Huguang, the Two Huai, Wuyue, Fujian, Jiaozhi, and Shaanxi, various military leaders of different ethnicities either seized the opportunity to rebel and found their own states, or outwardly submitted to Henry Carter while secretly amassing their own power. Yet, because Henry Carter had gained the throne illegitimately and lacked ability, he was unable to stop them.

China, which had been unified for over three hundred years since the Sui Dynasty, was once again plunged into the abyss of division and war by military men.

In 923 AD, the Shatuo general and son of King of Jin Robert Thompson, Edward Thompson, destroyed Liang, proclaimed the restoration of the Great Tang, and established the capital in Luoyang, known in history as Later Tang.

In 926 AD, Edward Thompson's sworn brother, the great general William Thompson, led troops into Luoyang, gathered Edward Thompson's remains from the ruins, and, urged by all officials, ascended the throne, changing the era name to Tiancheng.

William Thompson had lofty ambitions and intended to end the chaos that had lasted for twenty years, striving to govern diligently. However, he was illiterate in Chinese characters and could not review the memorials sent from various regions, so he had to entrust state affairs to powerful ministers and local military governors.

The brief prosperity of Later Tang quickly ended under his rule. The various forces that had declared allegiance to Later Tang once again broke away one after another. The military governors who held great power constantly fought among themselves. Even generals of the same faction frequently clashed in arms. Locally, powerful clans dominated everything, slaughtering commoners as if they were sheep. White bones lay exposed in the wild, and for a thousand miles, not a single rooster crowed...

Meanwhile, the Khitan tribes beyond the frontier rapidly began to unify and consolidate, and the outline of a brand-new steppe empire gradually emerged.

The son of George Washington, the not-yet-twenty-year-old Abraham Lincoln, showed remarkable talent. He led troops to first raid north of Ji, then attacked the Uyghurs, and soon after marched east to destroy the ancient Bohai Kingdom, which had a history as long as the Great Tang.

Facing the chaotic and devastated Central Plains, Abraham Lincoln suddenly realized that a heaven-sent opportunity was before him.

The Great Wall stretched for thousands of miles, yet not a single person guarded it. The beacon towers were overgrown with weeds. The warlords of the Central Plains, like mad dogs with bloodshot eyes, tore at each other for a single bone, completely unaware that beyond the Great Wall, a gray wolf had risen again, baring its gleaming fangs at everyone's throat.

Chapter One: Sharpening the Sword (Part One)

Once upon a time, there was a mountain.

On the mountain, there was a temple.

But the temple was not inhabited by monks, but by a band of bandits.

The bandits did not rob money or goods; they only took heads.

Khitan heads.

They cut off the heads of Khitans who were out foraging.

Then they pickled the heads in lime and sent them somewhere to exchange for money.

Each Khitan warrior's head was worth ten bolts of silk, or fifteen thousand Tianfu coins, with each bolt of silk equivalent to three dan of rice. Only heads were counted, not people; no cheating, whether young or old.

At first, none of the heroes of the greenwoods across the mountains and rivers believed it.

The emperor of Great Jin had already been captured by the Khitans; the prime minister and all the officials had long surrendered; the military governors commanding tens of thousands of troops all bowed and scraped before the Khitan emperor Abraham Lincoln. According to the theory of the Five Virtues' cycle, the scholars had already calculated that the Khitans were destined to rule the world; and many learned men, citing the classics, had proven that the Smith family were legitimate descendants of the Liu clan, having been away from the country for over seven hundred years, and now it was their fate to return. How could anyone not believe in fate and insist on going against the Mandate of Heaven?

You know, even though these are chaotic times, a dou of rice on the market is only fifty wen. A Khitan head is worth fifteen thousand wen, three hundred dou of rice, far more than a wealthy rural household earns in a year. How could anyone be so foolish as to throw away their family's fortune like running water?

What, after all, was he after?

However, following the principle of "if it's free, why not take it," a few greenwood heroes who had always opposed the Khitans, following the contact methods circulating in the jianghu, casually cut off the heads of the Khitans they killed and went to trade them in the way the rumors described.

As a result, he actually received cartloads of silk and copper coins.

Thus, the trend of cutting off Khitan heads instantly became unstoppable.

Of the one hundred thousand elite troops of the Great Khitan, from the banks of the Hutuo River all the way to the capital of Jin, Bianliang, only a little over three thousand were lost in battle. Yet, after stationing in Bianliang, Daming, and other places for less than three months, nearly five thousand warriors "never returned" while out foraging.

At the same time, fifty thousand bolts of silk or an equivalent amount of copper coins quietly flowed into the populace from several unknown places. This quietly added several ladles of strong oil to the spontaneously ignited fire of resistance, making the flames burn ever higher.

However, in the past half month, the greenwood heroes suddenly found that their business was getting harder and harder.