1636: Whales in the Waves of the Old Port

In the ninth year of Chongzhen, at Old Port.

Shi Hai opens the clan genealogy that has lain sealed away for two hundred years.

As ink splashes across the page, he sees more than the memories of his ancestors. He also sees the future in which Westerners carve up these seas, and the fate of countless Chinese people soon to be scattered across the world.

He is no savior.

He is simply someone who, in the darkest era for the Chinese people, opens a crack.

“History has its own great currents. I merely opened a crack amid those currents. Light shone through it, but the ones who truly changed history were those who stepped toward the light.”

The Longwu Emperor was one. Zheng Chenggong was one. So were the countless Chinese people who held their ground on land and blazed trails across the sea.

They were the ones who changed history.

And him? He was only the one who opened the crack.

Starting with a single ship, setting out from Old Port. He does not contend for the Central Plains or seek the imperial throne. He has only one goal: to let the Chinese people embrace the ocean once more.

The Age of Discovery is not a one-man show. It is a constellation of a whole people shining bright.