I Am the Heavenly Brother

The soul of the Hongwu Emperor descends upon the pinnacle of power in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

In 1853, the banners of kings flutter above Nanjing. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom establishes its capital at Tianjing, where Eastern King Yang Xiuqing wields power over the court and his conflict with Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan threatens to erupt. The shadow of the Tianjing Incident looms over the stone city.

Just as an assassin’s poisoned blade is about to end Yang Xiuqing’s life, a completely different soul awakens in his body: Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, who has traveled through time from the Imperial Temple in the fourteenth century to become the “Nine-Thousand-Year-Old” caught in the middle of a political firestorm.

A founding emperor who fought his way up from the very bottom of society, a ruthless man who understands power and acts without hesitation, now faces Hong Xiuquan, the “Second Son of the Heavenly Father,” who maintains his rule through superstition and deception; a group of princes with their own agendas; and a Taiping army that seems unstoppable but has yet to secure its foundations.

Zhu Yuanzhang’s experience tells him that divine authority must submit to imperial authority, and that superstition cannot win a war.

Yang Xiuqing’s position tells him that the northern campaign must be pursued to the end: only by overthrowing Beijing can they truly secure Nanjing.

And so everything changes.

He does not rush to seize Hong Xiuquan’s title of “Ten Thousand Years.” Instead, he uses the iron-fisted methods of the Ming to purge the Eastern Prince’s household, cow the other princes, and bring power firmly into his own hands. Defying all objections, he commits the full strength of the Heavenly Kingdom to supporting the northern campaign, turning the isolated forces of Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang into a sharp blade aimed at the heart of the Qing court. He watches Zeng Guofan’s Xiang Army rise with cold eyes, while already planning a confrontation that will span the ages.

This is no simple transmigration. It is the complete transformation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom by the Hongwu Emperor.