This is not a transmigration story.
In the small Jiangnan village where the author was born, generations have passed down a tale of a notorious bandit called Greenbeard. How did he go from a petty outlaw to a fearsome river pirate? Almost nothing remains of the old-timers’ stories. Tales of the supernatural from the countryside have always been a favorite topic of conversation. The truth can no longer be verified, and the author never had the chance to write a proper history book.
In the late Qing, the Taiping Rebellion devastated the empire’s richest source of tax revenue, laying bare the decrepit state of the aging dynasty. Colonial powers circled like wolves, all eyeing the same juicy prize. The Xiang and Huai armies slaughtered innocents to claim military credit, while foreign gunmen roamed the concessions. How did the boys from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom’s child soldier battalions grow up and survive? How did human kindness and cruelty flourish in the empire’s final days? How did an ordinary village become a “bandit village” that made the locals tremble at the mere mention of it?
In an age when order had collapsed, highway robbery was an enticing way to make money without investment, and few could easily turn down unearned riches. The author never heard that Greenbeard committed the usual atrocities associated with bandits, such as rape, kidnapping, looting, and robbery. That hardly fit the occupational label. What kind of bandit was Greenbeard? What did he do, and how did he manage to receive a respectable burial in the end without being dug up and whipped? These questions have long haunted the author.
Now, let me spin you a tale.
