A British officer reborn in 1861 carries the bitter regret of his previous life over the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and resolves to defy fate with his knowledge of Victorian-era military affairs. He is no god, but he holds a “death list” of people who will prove pivotal. He has no desire to be king; all he wants is to build Tianjing’s first modern rifle. In an age where steamships and Green Dragon Crescent Blades coexist, he will use trench warfare against the Xiang Army, use financial schemes to procure foreign rifles, and even engage his nemesis Gordon in a deadly battle of wits between former classmates. This is a tragic attempt to dissect the decaying body of the old theocracy with the scalpel of modernization, and the lonely epic of an idealist striving to kindle the first spark of industry in the ruins of a dynasty doomed to fall.
