The AI-generated historical web series Armed Entry into Song (持械入宋) has surpassed 6.6 billion total views across Chinese online platforms, driven largely by its distribution on ByteDance’s Hongguo Short Drama app, where it claimed the top spot on the platform’s AI recommendation rankings, unwire reported.
The production’s commercial return has reached approximately RMB 10 million, with total computing power expenses exceeding RMB 1 million, according to production figures cited in the sources. The series adapts a web novel by author Cha Gen’er, following a five-person modern special operations team that travels back to the late Northern宋 (Song) dynasty carrying contemporary equipment and military tactics just years before the靖康 (Jingkang) incident.
Failed Businessman Masters Tools for Drama
The project was spearheaded by 54-year-old Zhang Hansheng, who began learning artificial intelligence video generation tools in March 2025 as the 11th student at the Xuebao Studio, adopting the handle “Old Eleven”. Zhang turned to the technology after experiencing multiple business setbacks and returning to Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, to care for his ailing father. He spent upwards of ten hours a day mastering text-to-image and image-to-video workflows before taking on freelance AI video production orders and eventually launching his own drama.
Operating under the name “Old Eleven Theater,” Zhang assembled a core creative group of six individuals alongside a wider network of over 30 members spread across various Chinese provinces. According to BusinessFocus, the core group possessed no formal film industry background, consisting instead of a former ride-hailing driver, a delivery worker, a wholesale business operator, a homemaker, and a corporate employee who collaborated entirely online.
Chief producer and head writer Li Zhaohua noted that the team spent roughly half a month in pre-production for the first season, building detailed character profile settings to maintain visual consistency across generations. While standard shots required an average of three generation attempts, complex military battle sequences involving multiple characters frequently demanded more than twenty iterations. Premiering on August 22, the series released approximately 1,000 episodes spanning 10 seasons by early November, with each episode running under two minutes.
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ByteDance Vice President Li Liang publicly acknowledged the project on November 5, pointing to the creators as examples of grassroots practitioners using AI to direct viral hits.
Despite the domestic and cross-border viewership footprint—which extended to Taiwanese social media platforms like Threads and Facebook—observers have urged caution regarding the broader market. Industry analysts note that the micro-drama sector operates on a steep Pareto distribution where the vast majority of independent projects fail to recoup costs. Regulatory bodies such as the National Radio and Television Administration have signaled tighter oversight regarding automated adaptations and generated content.
| Production Metric | Reported Figure |
|---|---|
| Total Views | Over 6.6 billion across platforms |
| Hongguo Platform Collections | Approximately 11.41 million |
| Episode Volume | Approx. 1,000 episodes across 10 seasons |
| Computing Power Expenditure | Over RMB 1 million |
| Gross Commercial Return | Approx. RMB 10 million |
Publicly available reports do not disclose uniform cross-platform deduplication metrics for the 6.6 billion view count, meaning the figure reflects aggregate plays rather than unique individuals. While the production cost per episode averaged roughly RMB 1,000, market specialists emphasize that the financial outcome of Armed Entry into Song remains an outlier within an increasingly crowded digital content ecosystem.
