The Tenth Abomination

In 699 AD, Empress Wu Zetian constructs a vast wall across the Western Regions, severing Gaochang County to control the Jade Road trade. When a mother sues her son for unfilial conduct, an exiled legal scholar discovers the trial is a mechanism to legally execute those who dug tunnels beneath the wall. Philippe Sands-style narrative interweaves Tang legal codes, excavated Turfan manuscripts, and the silenced voices of border families to reveal that the law's most sacred provisions were deliberately designed as trapdoors through which absolute power could strike.