The Restoration of Lin Gong

Modern historian Lin Mo has an accident and finds himself inhabiting the body of Lin Zexu in the eighteenth year of the Daoguang reign, just as he is appointed in a time of crisis to go to Guangdong and suppress the opium trade. Before him lies a land ravaged by opium, its poison spreading for thousands of miles. Behind him is the Qing court, crippled by generations of corruption. In his heart, he carries the humiliation and bloodshed that await his people over the next century.

History's Lin Zexu, known as "the first to open his eyes and look at the world," ultimately died embittered by the limits of his era. But this time, equipped with a modern understanding of history and ideas for reform, he knows that the destruction of opium at Humen will bring the threat of foreign ships and cannons. He also knows that closing the country off from the world will lead inevitably to its decline.

He must establish himself as Lin Zexu, carrying out the mission to suppress opium despite obstruction from the legalization faction and the cunning of British merchants. But he must also break free of history's momentum: secretly replicate Western cannons, build a modern navy, train people well-versed in foreign affairs, and even try to pry open the rotten court, planting the seeds of self-strengthening before the flames of war ignite.

When the smoke of the Opium War rises right on schedule, he is no longer the isolated pioneer he once was. The cannons of coastal defense shatter the myth that the British army is invincible, while pragmatic diplomacy challenges the delusion of the "Celestial Empire"!

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.