I transmigrated to the final years of the Southern Song. The realm was in turmoil, and Xiangyang was on the verge of falling.
I, Shen Ge, was a defeated general, reborn on the eve of a massacre.
I carried plans for future cannons close to my heart, and all that remained in my chest was a burning refusal to die in vain.
Was history set in stone, with no one able to stop the Mongol cavalry?
Was a rotten court doomed to kneel and sue for peace?
I didn't believe it.
Starting by gathering the remnants of my forces and rallying the scattered troops of Xiangyang, I built the first blast furnace in my stronghold.
While people still fought iron hooves with flesh and blood, the land mines I planted had Yuan troops tumbling from their horses.
While the court in Lin'an argued over peace talks, the red-barreled cannons in my hands were already blasting open the barriers of the old age.
I won, and my name resounded throughout Xiangyang.
But an imperial edict thrust me straight into the heart of the storm in Lin'an.
There, Jia Sidao held power over the court and saw me as a thorn in his side.
The sovereign on the throne was timid and cowardly, knowing only how to kneel.
The court was full of high officials who drank and dreamed their lives away, pawning off the realm inch by inch.
Someone asked me why I insisted on defying fate.
I looked to my side, at Su Wanqing, the healer who had stayed with me through mountains of corpses and seas of blood,
then turned my gaze to the map, where thousands of miles of rivers and mountains were being swallowed by bloodshed.
Then I slowly unfurled the astonishing secret manual of firearms from the future.
"Your Majesty, stop kneeling."
"If the sky over this dying age refuses to fall, then I'll blast a new dawn into being with cannon fire."
