Starting a Business in the Late Tang Dynasty

Two hundred and fifty-seven years after the reign of the Li family, the once glorious Tang Dynasty, which had been the cradle of all nations, stumbled into the winter solstice of the first year of the Qianfu era. That winter, only three months remained until the fall of the Tang Dynasty, and only thirty-three years until the reign of King Wang and Huang Liqi. That same winter, while the officials of Chang'an were still basking in the afterglow of the golden age, the small Nanzhao Kingdom in the southwest of the empire once again invaded Xichuan. …In the first battle, the Tang army was defeated at the Dadu River, its routed troops fleeing to Qiongzhou, and the Nanzhao army advanced directly towards Chengdu. Meanwhile, outside the Dadu River, on a battlefield of carnage, a young Tang soldier opened his eyes. He pushed aside the corpses covering him, his eyes filled with the setting sun and the impending doom of the world. This was the first year of the Qianfu era. The Tang Dynasty had not yet collapsed, but the world was already a scene of ruins. Our story begins in the winter of that year, with the Nanzhao War.