"You thought the Ming Dynasty died in 1644? No, it died in 1662 - or, it never really died."
When news of the fall of Beijing spread to the south of the Yangtze River, the scholar-bureaucrats thought it was just another "crossing south in disguise". They didn't know that this time, what came from the north was not Huma who could be Chineseized, but a conqueror who wanted to completely rewrite the order of the world. The self-proclaimed imperial courts in the south were already rotten from within before the Qing army went south.
It is not just a peaceful corner of the old Southern Dynasties, but a death spiral of internal strife, rebellion, massacre, and exile.
It is not a romantic epic of loyal ministers and righteous men, but the complex human nature of Shi Kefa trapped in Yangzhou, Qian Qianyi's water being too cold, and Wu Sangui's repeated leaps...
