[If you’re not reading this on chichilations, then you’re reading a stolen copy. Reposts are not allowed anywhere or for any reason! Nor are unauthorized EPUBs!
Links for thee: Ko-fi Donation — Translator’s Twitter — Project Index — EPUB Library — Discord Server — Google Docs
I see all your likes and comments! Thanks in advance!

To buy the original: RAWs — jjwxc Buying Guide]

“Chichi, what the heck is this? Why did you upload the first six chapters like a year after you last uploaded the rest of the novel?” Allow me to explain, friend.
Compared to the rest of my translations, Golden Stage was old. It needed updating to be more in line with my current standards and style. At first, I did this in the form of an EPUB, as it was infinitely easier to edit and streamline than individual WordPress posts (I was completely right, WordPress is a pain and I had to copy paste each individual paragraph because it’s allergic to mass block pasting/deletion… hrrrrgh). Once actual licensed EPUBs started being a real thing instead of a pipe dream, I removed and stopped releasing EPUBs, meaning that I had to update the posts all by hand.
One of those EPUB-exclusive updates was the fact that I did my own versions of the first six chapters, instead of using penhappy’s posts, which… no.
Then, due to me getting sick of bot aggregators/copying/people that don’t understand the meaning of ‘no reposts’, I moved all of the novel onto Google Docs. Ellipsis […] denote the end of the website text. Go to the ToC at any time to view the full version.

ToC and Character Guide | Next

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Chapter 1: Prologue

In the Great Zhou’s twenty-fifth year of Yuantai, the Eastern Tartars invaded Beijiang.^[1]The border defense guard — the Northern Yan Iron Cavalry — collaborated with the two garrisons of Ning and Tong Provinces, and their forces joined up at Wuding River. The Tartar troops were defeated, while West Autumn Gate was recovered from their more than seven hundred li taken.

In August^[2] of that same year, the Eastern Tartars’ Uji clan presented a memorial of surrender, also declaring that they were willing to pledge allegiance to the Great Zhou, call themselves its subjects, and pay tribute. On the sixteenth, diplomats from both sides completed the surrendering ceremony on the banks of Wuding, stipulating that the Uji would pay an annual tribute of furs, medicine, horses, precious metals, and other such things, as well as that their Khan would send his son into the capital to study Central Plains etiquette at the Imperial College.

[…]

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ToC and Character Guide | Next