Introduction to the work "Dragon Flag Sunset"
In 1894, when the Sino-Japanese War of Sino-Japanese War was about to start, Chen Hao, a student in the Department of Modern History, woke up from the "Seventy Years of the Late Qing Dynasty" in the library and turned out to be the Guangxu Emperor Aisin Gioro Zaitan who was trapped in the Forbidden City. At this time, Ci'an has passed away, and Cixi is firmly in the Summer Palace and controlling the government. Li Hongzhang's Beiyang Navy seems to be strong but is in danger of running out of old ships and ammunition. Japan is taking advantage of the chaos of the Dongxue Party to sharpen its sword in Korea. Great powers are waiting for it, and the thousand-year-old dynasty is slipping into the abyss of destruction.
Knowing the humiliation of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the bloodstains of the 1898 Coup, and the desolation of the Yingtai captivity, as well as the century-old suffering of China's fall, he was unwilling to repeat the mistake of "deliberate reform but ended in tragedy." With the support of the emperor's teacher Weng Tonghe, he attracted practical talents such as Zhang Jian and Sheng Xuanhuai, and used officials to supervise business operations to develop textiles and open mining roads to raise financial resources; he broke the "ancestral family tradition" to train a new army and consolidate the navy to strengthen national defense; he opened cracks in the dream of "a kingdom in heaven" and sought opportunities in the game of great powers.
Within the red wall, he must hide his edge in the word "forbearance" to balance the power of the emperor and empress; in the court, he must distinguish loyalties from traitors, control powerful officials, and pave the way for change in the gap between conservatives and Westernizationists. This is a race against the drums of the Sino-Japanese War, and even more so a deadly battle against the old system - let's see how Zai Tan, who has traveled through time, uses modern historical knowledge as a blade, uses the Forbidden City as a game, and in the afterglow of the setting sun of the Dragon Flag, opens a thorny road to rejuvenation for China.
