The Southern Ming's Female Marshal

Introduction to Southern Ming: From Suzhou to Jinling

In the first year of Yongping, fifty-five years after the southward migration. Cao Hui, a young lady of the Cao family in Suzhou, wants a maid who can read. A matchmaker brings her a government slave covered in wounds, named Lu Qing. Cao Hui saves her when she is dying of a high fever, and Lu Qing keeps her company through the long nights of confinement. From friends who share books to family, from bookkeeping to martial arts, a sheltered young lady and the daughter of a disgraced official become each other's deepest bond amid the misty rain of Jiangnan. When Cao Hui marries, Lu Qing goes with her. Her husband, Zheng Mubai, is a proper gentleman, and the three of them share a home, developing a curious rapport. Lu Qing learns calculus and astronomy at a Western church. Cao Hui edits her husband's essays on statecraft and manages the Cao family's accounts, while Zheng Mubai translates Locke's Two Treatises of Government into Chinese and hides it inside a hollow wall. When bandits attack during an autumn hunt, Lu Qing drives them off alone. On the way to the capital for the imperial examinations, she saves the governor of Southern Zhili in a mountain pass. In Nanjing, night raids, secret letters, and political machinations follow one after another. But she remembers only one sentence: "War isn't about winning. It's about living on for those who can no longer win."

One young lady, one maid, one provincial graduate. Three people, one writing desk, half a banned book, and an entire era hidden within.