Over two thousand years ago, the world was splintered.
Not in silence, but in screams.
For centuries, the Middle Kingdom—what would one day be called China—had known harmony under a singular emperor, ruled by the Mandate of Heaven. Or so the scribes of old claimed.
But Heaven's mandate, like all things, was fragile.
It shattered into a thousand jagged pieces, each shard snatched by kings whose ambitions burned hotter than their swords.
This was the Warring States Period—a time when the land was carved into seven kingdoms, each circling like wolves around a single, bloodied bone: supremacy.
Qi. Chu. Yan. Han. Zhao. Wei. Qin.
Seven names that thundered across valleys, whispered in fear by peasants, shouted by war-hardened soldiers, spat through clenched teeth by rival kings.
Seven nations breathing the same poisoned air, watching the same blood-red sun rise and fall—yet each building walls against the others.
To the south, Chu spread its fingers over marshlands and rivers—a kingdom of water and shadow.
Its jungles hummed with life—birdsong mingled with the hiss of insects—while warriors, draped in feathers and lacquered bronze, moved like ghosts between the trees.
Chu was beautiful, dangerous, and soaked in deceit.
Beneath its green canopy, ambition grew like roots—hidden, entangled, and waiting to strangle.
In the east, Qi hugged the coast, a kingdom ruled by gold and trade.
Its ports rang with the cries of merchants, and its ships—heavy with silks, salt, and jade—sailed like treasures across the waves.
Qi's wealth was its pride, and its curse.
The kingdom gleamed like a coin in the sun—brilliant to behold, yet easily spent.
Loyalty here was as fickle as the tides; power shifted like sand beneath a rising wave.
To the north, Yan crouched beneath mountains and wind, its fields as cold and unyielding as the hearts of its people.
Life was hard. Men were tempered like steel in winter frost.
They did not need grandeur or excess. Their strength came from hunger. From survival itself.
What does a man with nothing have to fear?
Westward, Wei sprawled between rivers and bridges—a kingdom of architects and strategists.
Its walls stood tall. Its canals fed cities. Its forges hammered weapons to perfection.
But stone cannot hold a crumbling spirit.
The whispers of decline echoed through its courts—too weak to strike, too proud to bow.
Once great, now weary, Wei clung to its legacy like a man clutches a dying flame.
At the heart of it all lay Zhao, a kingdom of endless plains where the earth trembled beneath cavalry hooves.
Zhao's horsemen were unmatched—a tide of steel and speed that could flatten cities overnight.
But years of war had hollowed the kingdom.
Grief poured from its fields like dust in the wind.
Its people wore their suffering as armor, hardened by famine and loss.
Still they fought. Because to stop was to die.
South of Zhao, Han huddled small and clever—a mouse beneath the feet of giants.
A kingdom of scholars and survivors, darting and dodging as the wolves of war closed in.
Its king sat on a throne carved from desperation, wearing his crown not with pride but with weariness, as though it weighed more than the walls around him.
And then there was Qin.
Far to the west, it loomed—
its name a whisper wrapped in unease.
The other states, with their ancient lineages and lacquered etiquette,
sneered at Qin as crude, ignoble—
a kingdom born not of nobles,
but of stable-masters.
Men who once tended horses in the shadows of greater thrones.
To the aristocrats of Qi, Wei, and Chu, Qin's blood was coarse.
Its customs—harsh.
Its warriors—brutal in a way that seemed not refined, but primal.
And yet—
it was feared.
Qin did not play by the rules of the others.
It did not dance with intrigue.
It did not barter.
It did not bow.
Its strength was not born in silk-lined chambers,
but on barren, unyielding land.
Its people—hardened.
Its laws—iron.
Its ambition—raw and relentless.
It was a shadow.
A hunger.
An inevitability, biding its time.
But the story of Qin would come later.
For now, it watched—
unmoving and unmerciful—
from its fortress of black banners and unyielding laws.
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Between these kingdoms stretched a land scarred by war.
Villages burned to the ground, their ashes carried on restless winds.
Armies moved like locusts, devouring crops,
leaving behind only hollowed homes.
Rivers once clear now ran thick with mud and blood,
choked by the weight of fallen men.
In this fractured world, there was no peace.
Alliances rose and fell like summer storms—
temporary, destructive, and gone before the dust could settle.
Ambassadors crossed borders with silk and silver,
their smiles hiding daggers.
Spies melted into cities like shadows,
their whispers worth more than gold.
Kings dreamed of unity—of one empire beneath their banners—
yet none could bear to bow.
For the common man, war was the only constant.
A farmer in Zhao might wake to the beat of distant war drums
and find his fields trampled by soldiers before noon.
A fisherman in Chu might pull nets filled with bones instead of fish.
A merchant in Qi might see his fortune disappear overnight,
his caravan swallowed by smoke as raiders burned the town.
And yet—
life pressed on.
Days bled into nights.
The rhythms of survival endured.
People made what living they could.
Even in the shadow of slaughter,
the land held whispers of something more—
a flicker,
a hunger,
a yearning for an end to the cycle.
In the eyes of kings, that dream was domination.
In the hearts of peasants, it was peace.
But to the historians of a distant future,
this would be known as the age of fracture—
An age where ambition ruled.
Where mercy died.
And where the earth itself seemed to groan
beneath the weight of men's dreams.
—————————
War may have been the master of this fractured land,
but not all suffered under its rule.
In the shadows of violence, life for the privileged blossomed in dazzling colour—
an empire of indulgence raised atop the bones of the common man.
The nobles, with their centuries-old lineages, lived as though untouched by chaos.
Within the walls of their sprawling manors, wine flowed like rivers—red, golden, intoxicating—poured by servants who glided soundlessly across polished floors. The banquet tables groaned under the weight of excess: lacquered ducks glistening with honeyed glaze, steaming platters of tender pork belly, delicate rice cakes stacked like miniature mountains. Bronze cups clinked in toasts; silk sleeves swept gracefully across the floor as courtiers bowed in choreographed courtesy. Long robes rustled like whispers of the past. Laughter rippled behind veils, poets strummed zithers with honeyed flattery, and dignitaries exchanged pleasantries with heads dipped, hands clasped—gestures soaked in centuries of performance.
Outside their manors, the wealthy travelled like royalty—carriages draped in brocade, the thud of oxen's hooves muffled by thick leather shoes. They wore their status proudly: robes of spun silk dyed deep crimson and jade, hems stitched with golden thread. Their hands, pale and untouched by labor, glittered with rings that caught the light of flickering lanterns as they lounged on low couches, sipping wine older than the wars that surrounded them.
And when they tired of the day's comforts, the night offered spectacle.
Fires crackled beneath open pavilions where dancers moved like water—bodies adorned with feathers and pearls, their rhythms a seduction of light and shadow. Acrobats twisted and flew through the air while storytellers painted gods and warlords in the minds of their audience, weaving heroism most nobles would never need to earn.
Beyond the revelry, another kingdom flourished—one of intellect and thought.
Hundreds of scholars, courtiers, and wandering sages filled the academies, libraries, and palace gardens. They gathered in shaded groves, their flowing robes marking their status, their debates as fierce as any fought on the battlefield. Calligraphy ink blackened slender bamboo slips, strung together like fragile bones, as they wrote ideas to shake empires.
The echoes of sages—Confucius, Laozi, Mozi—still drifted through the air. The Confucians preached benevolence and social harmony. The Daoists sought balance and detachment, their minds like drifting clouds. The Mohists championed frugality and universal love. Others, like Xunzi, warned that human nature was flawed and must be shaped by strict discipline. And then—there were the Legalists. Cold, calculating, sharp as blades. They rejected the softness of virtue and proclaimed that only law, order, and punishment could hold the world together.
To speak one's thoughts—boldly, daringly, dangerously—was the highest currency of worth.
And in this golden age of debate, ideas flowed like wine at the tables of kings.
And yet, amidst this age of luxury and thought, one group remained an unsightly stain on society's gleaming robe:
The merchants.
To own wealth but not land.
To chase profit but not wisdom.
To hold power without pedigree.
This was the curse of the merchant.
Their hands were calloused not by labor, but by coin.
They bought low, sold high. Their silver tongues were smooth, their motives suspect.
To the scholars, they were unlettered.
To the nobles, uncultured.
To the warriors, unworthy.
In a world ruled by the farmer, the scholar, and the sword, the merchant was a parasite.
The farmer fed the land. The scholar shaped morality. The soldier bled for his kingdom.
But the merchant?
He profited from others' work. Others' wars. Others' dreams.
No matter how much gold he hoarded, how fine the silk he wore,
he would never be seen as a man of honor, never be spoken of with reverence,
never be remembered in the songs of dynasties.
It was a bitter irony.
The same men who mocked the merchant feasted on the goods he carried.
The wines in their goblets.
The spices on their tables.
The silks on their backs.
All of it passed through merchant hands.
And yet, the merchant remained invisible—his name unspoken, his work unsung.
But not all merchants accepted invisibility.
Some, like Lü Buwei, gazed beyond the coin-laden ledger.
For some, ambition was born from shame.
To rise above one's station—
to inscribe one's name into the stone of history—
was the truest form of rebellion.
The world had declared that merchants were small.
Forgettable.
Replaceable.
But merchants, more than anyone, understood investment.
And as Lü Buwei looked out at the broken kingdoms—
at the blood-soaked courts, the trembling thrones, the greed disguised as glory—
he saw not disaster.
He saw opportunity.