In the seventeenth year of the Chongzhen reign, alchemist Wang Yan, carrying a fragment of a soul from the twenty-first century, arrives in Beijing just as the city is about to fall.
This is the worst of times: rebel forces besiege the passes, Qing troops pour through the frontier, the emperor is about to die for his country, and China is on the brink of ruin.
It is also the best of times: ignorant superstition has yet to be dispelled, and primitive industry is still waiting to awaken.
With science as his sword and industry as his shield, he will build an unprecedented empire on which the sun never sets, atop the ruins of this dying age, for China!
