The Tang has fallen. The realm has no master.
Fifteen years. Five dynasties. Emperors come and go like post-horses. Grain costs more than a man, a life is worth less than grass, and there are bones along every road. In an age like this one trade always pays — selling your life by the day, following the coin and not the flag. They call it soldiering for hire.

That is the company you command.

Paid by anyone. Loyal to no one.

You are not a hero. You are a bookkeeper who happens to carry a sword. Take the contract, draw the pay, strike camp — who you fight for does not matter; who pays does. Objectives, escalation zones, percentage settlements, and knowing when to walk away: every battle is an account. Balance it, then decide whether to gamble one more round.

Real-time with pause. Fight in formation.

Fourteen lanes of battle line. Pause at will, focus fire at will. Break armour, charge, brace against horse, trample the line. When enemy morale breaks they rout — and you can take their surrender where they stand and make them your own. Meeting force with force is how you die. Reading the gap before the flanks close is how you win.

Every man you send in, you are wagering.

The men under you have origins, traits and nicknames, and over the cookfire at night they will tell you something honest. You can stake your escalation bet on one veteran — to use a man is to wager him. If he dies, his name goes into the roll of the fallen, and once the ink is dry he does not come back. One less mouth to split the pay. You will remember him anyway.

From broken soldier to military governor.

Rank is bought. Life is borrowed. You climb one grade at a time, and the Black Banner — the flag that levelled your old camp — stands across every step. You close on the man himself, grade by grade, until the last battle. The day you take that banner down, you will understand what you have become.

The weight of a broken age.

Seven factions, twenty-nine troop types, and a researched ink-wash rendering of the northern Five Dynasties. Cold chronicler's narration and a black humour kept behind the teeth — the joke always lands on the same three facts: life is cheap, pay is heavy, and being right buys nothing. This is not a story about heroes. It is a story about staying alive, and what staying alive costs.

Features

• Real-time-with-pause tactics: fourteen lanes, focus fire, armour-breaking, cavalry charges, anti-cavalry braces, morale routs and battlefield surrender
  
• A company that remembers: origins, traits and nicknames, cookfire confessions, permadeath and a roll of the fallen — stake your bet on a man and you are betting the man
  
• Mercenary economy: contracts, market gear, recruitment, buying rank. Paid by anyone, loyal to no one
  
• The Black Banner campaign: from deserter to military governor, with full animated cutscenes
  
• Seven factions and twenty-nine troop types across node-based runs — choosing your road is choosing your difficulty. Roguelite replay
  
• Researched ink-wash art of the northern Five Dynasties, told in a cold chronicler's voice

The ash is not yet cold. There is one breath left in it. One breath is enough to raise an army.