When Xia Xuan woke up and realized he had become a slave offering at a sacrificial ceremony in the Xia dynasty, he had only one thought: survive.
Carrying a complete store of modern scientific knowledge, he lived through three thousand years of upheaval, beginning with the very first dynasty, and witnessed and helped shape every turning point in Chinese civilization.
In the Shang and Zhou dynasties, he taught basic agriculture and astronomy. In the Qin and Han dynasties, he established a secret system for passing down knowledge. In the Tang and Song dynasties, he helped spark the beginnings of a technological revolution. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, he faced difficult choices as the West came knocking...
He was no emperor, but in every era he was an extraordinary “observer” and “sower of seeds.”
When history reached 1911 and the guns of the Wuchang Uprising rang out, the white-haired Xia Xuan had finally completed his mission across four thousand years: to help this civilization face the arrival of the modern world with greater confidence.
