Dwelling in the past only brings trouble, people come and go but you trust the new that is the future. This drama captures military strategies and depicts the fight against kingdoms so beautifully. I was intensely involved in how the leaders were making decisions and how Changge(FL) was coming up with interesting ideas. I personally love strategies and problem solving and this drama showed it really well and nicely executed. However, many claim to stay just for romance and forwarded a lot.
Here, comes the other side, the romance of the leads wasn't that involving. Although I loved the initial part of drama, slowly it started losing its color and became dull. At this moment the second leads picked up the romance and it was worth watching because it was so fricking lovely. (Flash alert: These 2 have an upcoming drama in 2024 which is super exciting as their chemistry was just out of the world)
Acting:
I felt the acting in this drama required a lot of emotions and facial expressions and each character play their role well which is not the case with most dramas.
Story:
I loved the storyline but somewhere near 35ish ep I started feeling same strategies being repeated, characters being purposely killed which really wasn't necessary but just screentime. So i found myself forwarding in the end but the second leads romance always grabbed my eye.
On a side note, I also loved the FLs character development because they show how rage can sometimes blind you from making the right choice and end up hurting the ones you love. It was beautiful, lot to learn and grasp. The ML was just there tho, its just shown he fell hard for her and nothing more, this could have been developed better,

Overall:
Its a great drama, unlike most cheesy dramas (which im not a fan of like story of minglan or ashes of love which just show blind love and not focus on other aspects of life because the world just revolves around the 2 leads which does not resonate with me). This one was a bit real, although it lost that interest towards end specific to the leads but the rest storylines and characters, the strategies, the dialogues teach so many life lessons like moving on, what true love feels like (loves you for you) and how to take advantage of making the right decisions. I would highly recommend to watch this worth a watch historical drama. It felt hard to remember places and names but it helped me improve my memory power and focus i guess xD.

Don't look back if you're looking for a intense historical drama, this is the right one!