War-Torn Tianjin

Tianjin, 1920. Shen Yanqing, the spirited young heir to the Canal Merchants' Guild, dreams of saving China through industry and is engaged to Su Wanqing. But in an age of warlord strife, the guild's deputy Zhao Huaian, a Zhili warlord's young marshal surnamed Lu, and prosecutor Zhou Jingzhi each harbor their own schemes. Together, they frame Shen with a forged “secret letter betraying the country.” In a single night, Shen Yanqing loses his family and home and is locked in a prison on the lower reaches of the Hai River. At his most desperate, he meets Gu Henian, a wrongfully accused former Qing Grand Council minister, who shares his knowledge with Shen and reveals the secret of silver hidden beneath Jade Emperor Peak on Mount Tai. As the Zhili-Anhui War rages, Shen Yanqing escapes prison, finds the treasure using a code hidden in the Analects, and swears revenge. He then assumes the identities of Lu Mingyuan, an industrialist from Nanyang, and Mr. Mo, a strategist, moving among Tianjin's merchants, warlords, and canal gangs. He sets Zhao Huaian up to disgrace himself, exposes the young marshal Lu's corruption and causes his sudden death, and reduces Zhou Jingzhi to a mad beggar. After taking his revenge, Shen Yanqing sees the corpses of the war's starving victims and the children in the schoolhouse, and understands Gu Henian's dying words: “Save the people.” He entrusts the treasure that remains to others to build schools and provide disaster relief, then boards a boat and leaves Tianjin. The tides of the Hai River rise and fall. Su Wanqing watches over the schoolhouse, and the children's reading voices drown out the gunfire. In the darkness, hope has already begun to bloom. This is a legend from the chaotic Beiyang era, full of the satisfaction of revenge and the regret of lost love. More than that, it tells of one man's awakening as he shifts from living “for himself” to living “for everyone,” and invites readers to remember Shen Yanqing of Tianjin, a man who never lost his conscience.