When he woke, history graduate student Lin Yi had become Zhu Qizhen, the Zhengtong Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
He opened his eyes at Tumu Fortress, cut off from food and water and surrounded by Oirat cavalry.
He had no intention of becoming a prisoner, much less a foolish ruler.
From breaking out of a desperate siege to defending the capital, from standing firm against opposition to reforming the government,
he would lift the ban on maritime trade, promote science, train a modern army, and sail across the seas.
When the Ming sun-and-moon banner flies over the Americas and Western colonizers tremble before this eastern empire,
the emperor from six hundred years in the future will be rewriting not just the fate of a dynasty, but the course of civilization itself.
“The emperor guards the frontier, and the ruler dies with the realm? No. I will have the emperor expand our borders and the realm endure for ten thousand years.”
