In 'Kingdom of Characters', author Jing Tsu offers a compelling narrative on how the Chinese language, one of the world's oldest and most complex linguistic systems, underwent a revolutionary transformation to adapt to the modern era. Through a cast of visionary individuals, we witness China's arduous journey from a nation with a disintegrating empire and limited literacy to an emerging global superpower. The book chronicles the efforts of an exiled reformer advocating for Mandarin as a national language, a Chinese-Muslim poet contributing to Mao's phonetic writing system, and an ingenious computer engineer creating Chinese character input codes from a jail cell. These remarkable stories of innovation and tenacity highlight language's pivotal role in shaping history and the extraordinary lengths taken to ensure the Chinese script would thrive amidst technological advancements from the telegram to the smartphone.