Forty Years from the Late Ming to the Early Qing

In the third month of the first year of the Yongchang reign, the slightly weary Li Zicheng, emperor of the Great Shun, dozed off in the Hall of Martial Valor to the long, echoing calls of horns in the Forbidden City. In a daze, he seemed to see the fearless young Huang Lai'er of seventeen years ago, riding in fine clothes from his uprising in Mizhi to his bid for supremacy in the Central Plains, from galloping through Shanxi and Henan to claiming the capital, from a nobody in the wilderness to a warlord of the chaotic age. None of it seemed real, yet all of it stirred the soul.

This book is divided into two parts. The first begins with Li Zicheng's uprising and ends with Wu Sangui's surrender to the Qing. The second focuses on the Southern Ming court and the waves of anti-Qing resistance across the Central Plains. With the novel as its main vehicle, it strives to recreate that stirring, impassioned epic of rebels and outlaws.