In the tenth year of Guangxu's reign, Chen Yi woke up in front of his father's mourning hall.
What he inherited was not a huge fortune, but a 70,000-strong German weapons army, an arsenal capable of manufacturing Mauser rifles, a shipyard capable of manufacturing cruisers, and a hidden military intelligence network.
Before his death, his father left a letter, which contained everything that would happen in the next forty years - the annihilation of the entire army in the Battle of Majiang, the ceding of territory and compensation in the humiliation of Sino-Japanese War, the transformation of the Gengzi Kingdom into the Eight-Power Allied Forces...
"Don't let your father come to you in vain."
Seventeen-year-old Chen Yi stood behind Zuo Zongtang. In front of him were twelve French warships sailing into the estuary of the Min River. Behind him was the late Qing Empire that was decayed to the core.
No one knew that this young man held a trump card that could change everything.
This is a story about grabbing time. Race against the darkness of history before it falls.
