From the bloody dawn of Saarhu to the dusk of the Forbidden City in the year of 1911, this has never been the story of one person. Nurhachi's thirteen suits of armor were the starting point, but he would not have thought that the woman named Cixi would spend sixty years dragging the empire into the most gorgeous tomb.
See how Huang Taiji upgraded his tribe to a dynasty, how Kangxi turned on the ultra-long standby mode after outsmarting Oboi, and how many unspeakable career tricks are hidden in Yongzheng's secrets. Qianlong, while writing 40,000 poems, tacitly allowed Heshen to build the empire's ulcer. Until the sound of cannons on the other side of the ocean awakened the heavens from their dreams, some people tried to mend the sky, and some were busy fishing for the last pot of gold.
When Yuan Shikai made a precise bet between republic and monarchy, this three-hundred-year-old drama finally came to an end in the sunset of the winter of 1911.
