I opened my eyes to find myself standing in the bitter wind on Coal Hill, clutching three bloodstained battle reports.
Luoyang had fallen, and Prince Fu had been boiled alive. Xiangyang had been breached, and Prince Xiang beheaded. On the Songjin front, 130,000 elite Ming troops were being reduced to mountains of corpses and rivers of blood.
I am the Chongzhen Emperor, the last ruler of the Great Ming. Only three years remain before I hang myself from this old locust tree.
At court, the ministers are still quibbling over military expenses. Beyond the passes, Huang Taiji has sharpened his butcher's blade. In the heartland, Li Zicheng's banner, emblazoned with the character "Chuang," is already fanning a wildfire.
Every corner of this empire is falling apart, and I, an engineer whose memories of a previous life are in disarray, have become its only repairman.
No System. No immortal to show me the way. Only a complete set of cold, monumental industrial blueprints in my mind, knowledge from an age yet to come. "Issue the decree," I told the trembling eunuch from the Directorate of Ceremonial, my voice overpowering the wind and snow outside the hall. "We will not lift the maritime ban, and we will not increase the Liaodong military levy. I want to mine ore, smelt steel, and build machines."
From the first coke-fired blast furnace in the Western Hills to the steam-powered ironclads roaring along the Bohai coast. When volleys from flintlock rifles shattered the Eight Banners cavalry, and the thunder of trains carried grain and troops in every direction, everyone finally understood:
What I intend to save is not this rotten dynasty.
What I intend to forge is an entirely new age of steel.
