He once wanted to be a patchwork tailor, mending the Ming Dynasty, a battered ship riddled with holes. When the first cannon boomed from the walls of the capital, and the court’s cold arrows were aimed at him, he finally understood: only total destruction could bring true renewal. He gave up his official rank and fled overseas. When he returned with an ironclad fleet and line infantry, the princes of the realm were reduced to dust!
Chen Ye, a twenty-first-century graduate student in history specializing in the late Ming economy, is transported by an accident into the second year of the Chongzhen era, where he becomes an obscure minor official in the capital.
Dreaming of saving this disaster-stricken nation, he uses knowledge far ahead of its time to propose a “New Deal”: revitalize state finances with modern bonds, redistribute taxes by household landholdings and survey the fields, and reforge weapons on assembly lines. The Chongzhen Emperor sees him as his only hope and promotes him to Vice Minister, granting him immense power.
But his reforms threaten the interests of every scholar-official and entrenched power in the realm. Slander, assassination attempts, and mutinies follow one after another. At last, as he prepares for the decisive battle against the Later Jin, the supplies he awaits from the court never arrive. Instead, cannon fire is aimed at his own command tent!
His heart dies, his blood runs cold. Under the desperate cover of his officers, he fakes his death and escapes. Gazing toward the capital, he swears a blood oath: “You are unworthy of this vast realm. Then I will take it for myself!”
Years later, as Li Zicheng lays siege to Beijing and Dorgon watches Shanhai Pass, an invincible new army equipped with Minié rifles and steam-powered ironclads emerges from the mists of the South China Sea, officially declaring to this decaying world: A new age has begun!
