Storm clouds split the summit of Mount Tai as the death knell of Chongzhen’s suicide rang through time and space.
Five emperors stood together on the Fengshan Altar: Ying Zheng rested a hand on his sword and gazed at the map of the Nine Provinces; Liu Bang sat sprawled, laughing and cursing; Li Shimin gently stroked his golden bow; Zhao Kuangyin gripped his jade axe; and Zhu Yuanzhang glared with bloodshot eyes.
“The Ming Dynasty has fallen?” Zhu Yuanzhang roared, shattering the clouds. “Then let every nation be buried with it!”
A bronze cauldron blazed with five-colored flames, and a blood oath took shape as the Covenant of the Fengshan Ceremony.
“My iron cavalry will trample the cherry blossoms of Japan!” Zhu Di pointed his long spear toward the Eastern Sea.
Bai Qi stepped forward with a savage grin, the cold light of his Qin sword illuminating the pines halfway up the mountain. “My lord... I need only a hundred thousand heads to pave the road!”
Beneath a blood-red dawn, five dragons tore into the world.
The West soon discovered, to its horror, that the wars from the East left no prisoners, only white bones piled into towering monuments.
