Zhao Heng, a scholar of the Southern Song Dynasty, traveled across time with mysterious ancient artifacts when the country was destroyed. He did not go back to the past, but was thrown five hundred years later - the vast Pacific Ocean in the seventeenth century.
Facing the wild islands and primitive tribes, he used the top technology and governance wisdom of the Song Dynasty (steel filling, gunpowder, and the prototype of the imperial examination) to enlighten his mind, integrate various tribes, and create a civilized country with a strong Song style on an overseas island - "Cangming".
However, the real test comes when Cangming's sail shadow first appears in the ocean. The gunboats of Western colonists have spread all over the world. Zhao Heng was shocked to find that what he was fighting against was not the barbarians, but a modern civilization that was an entire era ahead of its time.
The steel-filled sword he relied on had to face the matchlock array; the fortune ship he carefully built had to deal with the gunfire of Galen's battleship; his Confucian ideal of "cultivation and governance" encountered the cold logic of colonial plunder and capital expansion.
As the ghost of the previous dynasty and the founder of the new country, Zhao Heng is caught in the ultimate dilemma: before the gap of five hundred years of generation and civilization, can the spark of civilization that he protects from the East survive the crushing of the times? This is a lonely and tragic epic showdown related to the survival of civilization.
