This is an alternate-history epic that begins with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In 1859, Hong Rengan takes power and implements the New Treatise on Aids in Administration. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom launches modernization reforms: it builds new armies, the Heavenly Army and the Sea-Calming Camp, constructs railways, and establishes a merchants' bureau. It eventually conquers the Qing court in the east and drives out Russia in the north. In 1870, it establishes its capital at Tianjing and renames itself the Chinese Celestial Empire. Over the next century, the empire completes two industrial revolutions, progressing from copying steam engines to inventing alternating current. It occupies Southeast Asia and the Americas and establishes a "New Tianjing," then defeats Britain and takes Hong Kong and Singapore, gradually building a global hegemony. Along the way, it endures world wars and internal ideological divisions. After the Tianjing Uprising in 1927, the Celestial Federation is founded, and during the Cold War it is the first to develop an atomic bomb. By the 1950s, the empire has become the world's sole superpower and landed on the moon, while Chinese becomes an official language of the United Nations. At the centennial celebration in 1959, the declaration "God's Heavenly Kingdom realized here on Earth" brings this journey from reform to its zenith to a close.
