The Eastern King Returns: Splitting the Heavens and Uniting the World

On a freezing night in Yong’an City, Yang Xiuqing jolted awake in a pool of blood. He had been reborn after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established its government in Yong’an, a full three years before his death in the Tianjing Incident and the kingdom’s eventual collapse. In his previous life, he had been the “spokesman for the Heavenly Father,” wielding power over the court, only to die in a fratricidal struggle. He had watched the fanaticism of the God Worshipping Society consume the people’s livelihoods, Hong Xiuquan’s incompetence destroy everything they had built, and the Qing army’s iron hooves crush the heavenly kingdom’s dream. Carrying the memories of two lifetimes and a blood feud, Yang Xiuqing abandoned his foolish dream of “serving the kingdom.” He continued to use the “Heavenly Father’s descent” to secure his authority, while secretly building an intelligence network called the Heavenly Ears Bureau and cultivating rising generals such as Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng. He quietly improved the Taiping army’s formations and logistics, all while coldly watching Hong Xiuquan’s hypocrisy and Wei Changhui’s cruelty, manipulating events to intensify the princes’ rivalries. On the night of the Tianjing Incident, flames engulfed the Eastern Prince’s residence. Using a “feigned death” to escape, Yang Xiuqing slipped away with an elite naval force and his trusted ministers. At Anqing, he raised the banner of “Great Yan” and issued the Proclamation to Cast Off Heaven and Punish the Qing: abolish the Holy Treasury, equalize taxes, ally with the gentry, and train a new army. From then on, he was both a “traitor” to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and a “great bandit” in the eyes of the Qing court, forging a new tripartite balance of power in the fertile lands of Jiangnan. From fierce battles against Shi Dakai and the capture of Tianjing that destroyed the kingdom, to clashes with Zeng Guofan’s Xiang Army and Li Hongzhang’s Huai Army, then a three-pronged northern campaign that broke through to Beijing and captured the Qing emperor, Yang Xiuqing rebuilt order amid the flames of war, combining a transmigrator’s strategic vision with modern military and statecraft principles. In the end, he ascended the throne in Nanjing and named his reign Yongchang. As he pacified the frontiers and resisted the great powers, he also introduced reforms and promoted industry, allowing the broken