There are no film and television majors, not a penny to invest, a team of 6 people are scattered across the country, and the entire process is coordinated online. A male-channel historical drama has just been made into a phenomenon-level work by a group of ordinary people. The AI short drama “Into the Song Dynasty with Arms” is adapted from Tomato’s novel of the same name and is produced by the “Old Eleven Theater” team. It was launched on the Hongguo short drama on August 21 and has been updated for ten seasons with a total of about 1,000 episodes. As of November 7, the show’s online views exceeded 12 billion.
Recently, the show’s chief planner and producer Zhang Hansheng, editor-in-chief Li Chaohua, and director He Xiushan were interviewed by a reporter from the Yangtze Evening News, revealing how they spent more than a year exploring the AI short drama track and turned it from a “running drama” to a high-quality product. The main creator said, “We have also been paying attention to the news these two days, and hope not to mislead everyone. This group of us got together at first because we had great confidence and love for AI, and it took more than a year to polish it. The advice is to maintain enough enthusiasm and devote enough learning time, rather than thinking about how much money you can sign up for to enroll in a certain class to achieve the level you want.”
Traveling back to the Northern Song Dynasty but not cheating, it became popular for 10 seasons in more than 2 months
During the interview, Zhang Hansheng talked about the daily life of the team, “Many common things are discussed in the group. We are not only partners, but also good friends in life. We all come up with ideas together.” The production team of “Armed into the Song Dynasty” has only six people, four men and two women, and the remaining members are working on other projects. During the interview, there were more than 30 members of the team scattered in Guangdong, Anhui, Hubei, Jiangxi, Fujian, Hebei and other places, and their lives were all different. Their studio was a screen in their respective homes.
The story begins in the late Northern Song Dynasty. A modern five-man combat team accidentally traveled to Qinghe Village with their equipment. They relied on engineering, medical, and tactical knowledge to build forts, gather refugees, and guard the people in the war between Song, Xia, and Song Jin. They fell into the Northern Song Dynasty with modern equipment, but instead of inserting modern people into the ancient background to repeatedly complete dimensionality reduction attacks, they gradually embedded modern civilization and wisdom into the texture of the time-travel story. The characters have distinct personalities, and there is also a lack of dialects and laughter.
The script was chosen by the chief planner Zhang Hansheng. “I am an older person with more traditional ideas. I prefer themes that are a little more orthodox, passionate, and hard-core, including feelings about family and country.” He said, “When I fell in love with this novel, I felt that it was very consistent with my various ideas. I was very excited at the time, and I called the team for a meeting after it was finished.”
Reviewing the popular hit, He Xiushan believes: “The author’s writing style is actually very good. What he said about the historical systems, official positions, and characters is very sophisticated.” Li Chaohua said: “Including its line skills, it is also something we pay special attention to when choosing IP.”
It was prepared on August 1st and the first season will be launched on Hongguo on August 21st. After that, the team repeatedly checked the Song-style costumes, scenes, and the first-level light and shadow prompts and tested them again and again. This kind of realism showed its effect in the ninth and tenth seasons: the weakening of light and shadow texture and “AI sense” became the most discussed improvement by the audience, and the team really realized that it was popular. He Xiushan wrote a song for the scene in Season 6 when Qin Hongying died in battle, and I cried while watching it after editing. Zhang Hansheng said, “If you don’t cry, the audience will definitely not cry; if you don’t laugh, the audience won’t laugh either.”
“When the first season was launched, it was basically tepid.” The turning point came from word-of-mouth fermentation. The team keeps an eye on the comment area every day, taking screenshots of recommendations from bloggers and mistakes made by viewers and forwarding them to the group for discussion one by one. As of November 7, the show has exceeded 12 billion views across the network and has been updated to ten seasons with a total of about 1,000 episodes. Season 11 will be launched again on the 15th of this month. In the comment area, comments such as “It looks good”, “I don’t want to fast forward”, “Reserve for the next season”, etc. are constantly flooding the screen.
There is no academic background, and the 6 main creators include mothers, self-employed people, and online ride-hailing drivers.
As for the rumor circulating on the Internet that “investing 1 million in computing power and getting a return of over 10 million,” Zhang Hansheng said that the return on investment is not low, but the statement of “return of over 10 million” is too exaggerated, and “the specific income is not convenient to disclose.” “We won’t surrender. We can only make dramas and upload. I really don’t understand the rest.”
“Armed into the Song Dynasty” is a work created by ordinary people from all walks of life. The six main creators do not have professional screenwriters, and the main creators are not from film and television majors. Among them are mothers who need to take care of their children and often miss online meetings because of picking up their children; there are also self-employed people who do wholesale business, drive small trucks for delivery, and former online ride-hailing drivers; director He Xiushan was previously a company employee. Counting the fifty-four-year-old Zhang Hansheng, “the average age is more than 40 years old with him, and in the 30s without him.”
In terms of team division of labor, Zhang Hansheng is responsible for selecting IP and setting creative ideas. “Now my daily job is to read novels and short plays.” Li Chaohua is in charge of process, distribution and film review. He Xiushan is the chief director and the person with the strongest comprehensive technical ability in the team. Specifically, the work process is, “Read the novel, then break down the script, break down the prompts, generate the video, and then do post-editing.” Everyone communicates through WeChat, Feishu, Netdisk, and Tencent Meetings. “If there is nothing to do, I won’t have meetings,” Zhang Hansheng said. “Time is not easy to coordinate. Some people are night owls, working at night and sleeping during the day.”
The six people independently completed the episodes they were assigned, and the pieces were put together as if they were done by one person. They relied on tacit understanding and asset library. “Character drawings, scene drawings, and props are unified into the asset library for everyone to use.” He Xiushan said, “The unity of characters’ personalities and emotions requires each creator to have a unified understanding of the script and characters.” After cross-checking in the group, if there are deviations in the understanding of costumes and characters, they will be reworked.
The delivery boy contributed one of the most praised scenes in the play. He Xiushan said, “In order to make the battlefield appear very real, he said, let me make a very ordinary character and let him charge into the battle. Self-employed people understand the embarrassment of small people, and delivery people know what it feels like when a person climbs high. Everyone’s prompting style seems to be unified in the end, but there are still differences in what they are good at.” Bao Ma is more delicate in emotional depiction.
We came together because of love. This was taught by a master in an online class.
In the wave of AI entrepreneurship in 2026, OPC is the most popular. Its full name is One Person Company, which refers to a micro-creation unit in which one person uses AI tools to support the entire production chain. The main creator of “Armed into the Song Dynasty” comes from such a mature example. A team of more than 30 people works from home as independent entities. The crew is settled not by salary, but by income sharing. The more you work, the more you get. The basis is the effective time actually adopted after review, and scrapped films are not included. Zhang Hansheng said, “When it comes to the monthly bill day, red envelopes are basically raining down in the group.” There is almost no need for anyone to push the progress. “Especially for a hit drama, the more they do, the more they earn.” Li Chaohua said, as the content is divided, self-motivation will come on its own.
The starting point of the team is to learn AI short drama production. “At that time, I really wanted to learn AI short drama production, but my skills were not good enough. I thought I could not make a drama myself.” Zhang Hansheng said, “Then I searched everywhere on the Internet, and all courses cost 1,000 yuan.” He Xiushan recalled, “They are all online masters, and they are online, so I have never met in person. All the teaching is done online.” There are many students who give up midway, and not everyone embarks on this entrepreneurial path.
How did the team grow? “I first made two dramas on my own, and they were both small hits. Later, they influenced my colleagues. They wanted to work with me on dramas, and gradually we found more than 30 team members.” There is only one entry rule: come with mature films. “If you make a complete film, if it works, you can use it. If it doesn’t meet our requirements, we won’t cooperate.” Zhang Hansheng said, “We are all equal, there is no distinction between superiors and subordinates. If you don’t want to do it, just don’t do it.”
At the technical level, they repeatedly debugged the screen using a method commonly known in the industry as “drawing cards.” The card draw rate of “Armed into the Song Dynasty” is not low. Li Chaohua explained that the high card draw rate is not because the camera is not good, but because “it does not meet the content standards we want.” He believes that a shot with no cheating and normal scheduling only has a score of 60, which is also a waste in their eyes. The place where the most investment is made is the highlight moment of the episode. “We have to make the exciting parts more exciting. It may take a day or two to polish this episode.” Token consumption seems to be acceptable to He Xiushan, “It won’t have much impact because we have an annual membership.”
After creating a hit product, the team decided to “reduce production” to save time and polish the content.
In order to solve the problem of survival, the five teams of the team previously produced up to 20 “streaming dramas” a month, but now it has dropped to single digits and shifted to positioning high-quality products and blockbusters. Li Chaohua said that although the token consumption of a single drama is rising, the total consumption is declining, and the time saved is used to polish the content. In short, “survive first, develop later.”
From the team’s perspective, AI is just a creative tool, and the core of a hit is always the content itself. The feelings of family and country and positive values are the foundation for “Armed into the Song Dynasty” to impress the audience. He Xiushan lamented that before this drama became a hit, they did not know that historical dramas could have such influence. “We used to do some entertainment dramas, but now we realize that we underestimated the audience’s acceptance of complex and orthodox themes.”
It is reported that the team was originally registered in Xinxiang, Henan Province, but has now settled in the OPC Center in Jingxing Mining Area, Shijiazhuang, and the local government has also provided free space support. When the qualifications are complete, they will also try to produce AI mid-length dramas before going to theaters. “Respect the audience and cannot fool the audience. However, we cannot blindly cater to the audience. We still need to guide the audience in terms of content and watch some more knowledgeable content.”
Yangzi Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Zhang Nan
Editor Ding Haoyu
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