Iron and Blood in 1894: The Dawn of the Republic

In the autumn of 1894, smoke from the First Sino-Japanese War blanketed the Korean Peninsula. Wang Ce, a modern military enthusiast, unexpectedly transmigrates into the Qing army general Wang Shizhen, only to discover that he is serving under Ye Zhichao, the commander of Pyongyang who, in real history, fled without putting up a fight.

When Ye Zhichao tries to repeat history and flee, Wang Ce makes a resolute decision: while Ye is on the run, he “requests” permission to rally the scattered troops and join forces with Korean righteous armies to establish a defensive line in the mountainous regions of northern Korea. Using modern military thinking, he combines guerrilla warfare with positional defense and miraculously drags the Japanese army into a war of attrition. Eventually, he launches a counteroffensive overland and drives the Japanese all the way to the coast at Busan.

Yet the inertia of history remains: the Beiyang Fleet is destroyed, and the Japanese land at Tianjin instead, advancing straight toward Beijing. The Qing court panics and signs the humiliating Treaty of Shimonoseki, even intending to cede the Liaodong Peninsula and its suzerainty over Korea.

Faced with this crisis, Wang Ce declares independence in Fengtian with the support of the people of the Northeast, establishing the “Northeast Republic.” To avoid the cost of civil war, he gives the appearance of recognizing Qing sovereignty while exercising complete autonomy in practice. He implements a policy of “open doors and saving the nation through industry,” welcoming foreign capital and technology while firmly preventing interference in domestic affairs, and vigorously developing military manufacturing and civilian industries.

This is an epic of a transmigrator changing the world through iron will and wisdom, a grand tale of a people carving a path toward dawn in their darkest hour.