This is the best of times and the most dangerous of times.
In the eleventh year of Yonghui, the Ming Empire was at its peak. The young Yonghui Emperor Zhu Xiongying has hundreds of millions of subjects and thousands of nations come to court. However, under the prosperous times, there are surging undercurrents:
In the city of Peiping, the crown prince of King Yan "died suddenly", and his younger brother Zhu Gaoxu controlled 200,000 border troops and was watching with eager eyes.
In the Forbidden City, princes were assassinated one after another. Witch dolls suddenly appeared in the palace, and the black fingers behind the scenes pointed to the side of the dragon bed.
Thousands of miles away, the Portuguese armored ships bombarded Laca, and for the first time, the Western powers aimed their guns at the East.
Above the court, the world is divided into three parts: the newly wealthy from a humble family, the relatives of the founding fathers, and the Jiangnan gentry, and party strife is about to break out.
Zhu Xiongying stroked the blood-stained edict on the imperial case - it was the imperial road paved for him by his grandfather Zhu Yuanzhang with his life. He knows that it is difficult to conquer a country, but even harder to defend it. What he wants to protect is not only the Zhu family's country, but also a world that is about to be completely changed by the industrial revolution, colonial wave, and ideological fission.
"Grandpa Huang, you said that the emperor cannot have a will." He stood on the top of the Fengtian Palace, overlooking the city that belonged to him, "but my grandson must prove that he has a will in order to protect this mountain and river."
This is a war without smoke. The opponent is time, the human heart, and the torrent of history. And he wants to win.
