Great Ming: Rising Through the Fight Against Japanese Pirates

In the winter of the thirty-third year of the Jiajing reign, the tides of Hangzhou Bay swept in with the Japanese pirates, shattering the walls of Sanjiang Guard.

That day changed Shen Yan's life forever. His father died in battle, his family was destroyed, and the seventeen-year-old escaped a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood with his nine-year-old sister on his back. From then on, he entered the storm-tossed world of the Ming dynasty.

These were the best of times, and the worst of times.

There was the fiery courage of Hu Zongxian, Qi Jiguang, and Yu Dayou as they swept away the Japanese pirates; the wild spirit and disappointments of Xu Wei; the flood of silver unleashed when Longqing opened the ports; and the Wanli resurgence forged by Zhang Juzheng's reforms.

There was also the endless struggle between the Yan faction and the upright officials, the deadly power plays within the Grand Secretariat, the people's misery under land seizures, the collapsing frontier defenses as the garrisons fell into ruin, the cold ruthlessness of imperial schemes, and the helplessness of watching a great edifice crumble with nothing that could be done.

From a young man who made his name by slaying pirates beneath the walls of Shaoxing to a strategist plotting within the governor's residence; from a capable local official who opened Yuegang to foreign trade to a pillar of reform at the heart of the Grand Secretariat. Shen Yan walked through thirty years of storm and fire, always holding fast to the blade passed down by his father and to the conviction that he must secure a future for the common people.

He witnessed the changing tides along the southeastern coast, the parade of faces in the imperial court, the raging flames of the dynasty's revival, and the undercurrents stirring beneath the sunset's glow.

Knowing it could not be done, he did it anyway. With his own strength, he tried to hold up the falling edifice, but in the end, he could only watch the Ming dynasty he had spent his life protecting vanish into the tides of history.

A treasured sword lies buried in a wrongful case, its loyal spirit wandering among the white clouds.

The rise and fall of the tides, all belong to the Ming.