In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen's reign, on top of Meishan Mountain, he looked at the burning city of Beijing and calmly died. The world will only remember him as the king who subjugated his country.
Little did he know that he had done something else in the seventeen years before this.
He tried to save the dynasty. He also personally executed his own students. He watched the hungry people exchange their sons for food, watched the officials and gentry exploit each other, and watched all efforts being swallowed up by the system. In the end, he gave up "saving Ming".
Instead, a weak but dangerous fire lit up in the darkness. He used his imperial body to cover the germination of seeds destined to change history.
He failed.
But that defeat—changed everything.
