Qianlong Returns

He died. At eighty-nine, after sixty years on the throne, he was the Perfect Old Man, an emperor for the ages. Then he woke up.

Nineteen years old, a failed candidate who had not even passed the lowest imperial exam, in remote Pengshui County, Sichuan. His parents were destitute and worried sick.

What kind of joke was this?

It was fine. The empire was still the same empire; only the person on the throne had changed. He had forgotten how to wage war? He had conquered the Dzungars. He had forgotten how to govern? He had reviewed memorials for sixty years. He had forgotten how to judge people? Which prince or noble at court had he not watched grow up?

So what if he had to start over? Then he would do it all again.

From a remote mountain village to the Forbidden City, from a nobody to a top scholar in both the civil and military examinations. His horsemanship and archery astonished all who saw them, and his writing shook the realm. He moved in and out of the palace, maneuvering among princes and beile nobles, laying his plans without a trace. He watched impassively as cannon fire roared through the Opium War, and quietly made his moves amid the scheming at court.

No one knew who he was. Only he knew: he had sat on this dragon throne before.

In the fifteenth year of the Daoguang reign, a young man named Peng Bingzhong began to rise. He had no idea that the body of this young man housed the sixth emperor of the Great Qing.

This is the story of a ruler from an old era who gets to live again in a new one.