Faraway Woods

A twenty-one-year-old Foreign Ministry interpreter is thrust into the chaos of the late Qing dynasty on the eve of the First Sino-Japanese War. In 1894, the Donghak Peasant Rebellion erupts in Korea, Japan eyes the opportunity hungrily, the Beiyang Fleet is all bluster, and the Qing court is divided among three powers: the reformist literati, the Beiyang faction, and the imperial family. Lin Yuan, a modern young man fluent in three foreign languages and well versed in international law, begins as a low-ranking interpreter at the Tianjin Customs Office. His paper, “Strategy for War with Japan,” astonishes Li Hongzhang and draws him into the First Sino-Japanese War.