Beneath the crooked-neck tree at Coal Hill, just as the white silk is about to be looped around Zhu Youjian's neck, Lin Mo, a history graduate student from the 21st century, suddenly takes control of the dying body.
Li Zicheng's cavalry has already breached the outer city. Beijing is on the verge of falling, and the Ming Dynasty is about to perish. China is about to plunge into three hundred years of darkness: the humiliation of shaved heads and changed clothing, the blood and tears of people driven from their homes, and the opening chapter of a century of national disgrace will all begin this very day.
An unexpected ability to travel between two worlds lets him move freely between the late Ming Dynasty and the modern era. When he shakily dials a number from the modern world and says, “Reporting to the nation, I am the Chongzhen Emperor. I request support,” he completely rewrites the fate of both timelines.
There is no immortal magic, no supernatural power, only food, guns, cannons, and medicine produced by a modern industrial system, along with strategic guidance and organizational expertise from the Republic. He reforms the bureaucracy, trains a new army, puts down the rebels, and drives out the northern invaders, bringing the Ming Dynasty back from the brink. He sets sail, conquers the world, and brings the glory of an empire on which the sun never sets to China three centuries early.
When Ming fleets sail toward the modern world laden with gold, spices, and minerals, and experts from the Republic establish industrial bases on late Ming soil, the Chinese people of both timelines finally unite in his hands to create a single golden age.
