In the seventh year of the Tianqi reign of the Ming dynasty, the peasant rebel armies led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong reached an unprecedented scale. By day, the land was strewn with the dead and dying; by night, wandering ghosts haunted the streets, leaving the people unable to live in peace. The failed scholar Song Yu witnessed this and resolved to help the dead pass on, guiding their souls into the cycle of reincarnation. Qiu Wu, one of Zhang Xianzhong’s subordinates, was a Maoshan master clad in purple Taoist robes, a practitioner at the highest level of Taoism. But Qiu Wu strayed from the righteous path, using his extraordinary ability to control ghosts to help Zhang Xianzhong sow chaos and torment the people, making it easier to take cities. Song Yu and Qiu Wu thus began a long battle of magic. Later, after Zhang Xianzhong was defeated, Duo’ergun took Qiu Wu into his service. Qiu Wu helped the Qing army defeat the Ming forces time and again, leading to General Yuan Chonghuan’s execution by lingchi on the emperor’s orders. He then incited a subordinate of Li Zicheng to molest Wu Sangui’s concubine. Enraged by the insult to his beloved, Wu Sangui opened the pass to the Qing army.
