Twin Peaks of Iron Teeth

Beneath the prosperity of the Qianlong era, the court was a world of shadows and light. Ji Xiaolan, an upright official, wielded his scholarship like a knife and his tongue like a sword, exposing corruption and scandal. Heshen, a powerful minister, kept the emperor’s favor through smooth talk and spun a web of wealth and influence, secure at the head of the bureaucracy. One loyal, one treacherous; one honest, one corrupt; one a man of letters, one a man of power; one clever, one cunning. From the court’s joking debate over whether someone is “a wolf or a dog,” to the life-and-death argument in Yancheng Prison over whether refugees count as people; from couplets built around the five elements, whose every word cuts to the bone, to comradeship forged in hardship during exile on a deserted island; from an elaborate trap involving a million taels in meal expenses to the astonishing pun “Shahe Shen” sounding like “kill Heshen”... The two men spent their lives fighting one another, yet also cherishing one another. They fought over money, office, and face, but also over the fate of the people, the proper way to govern, and the emperor’s art of rule. Qianlong watched from the sidelines, while this iron triangle held up the entire Qing bureaucracy. This is no simple clash between good and evil, but the most sophisticated battle of wits and human nature in an age of prosperity.