Great Ming: In the Seventeenth Year of Chongzhen, I Will Not Move South

In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, on the day the capital fell, Johann Adam Schall von Bell, a missionary in China, wrote in his "China Missionary":

"The eunuchs who even now continue to surround the emperor with deception and schemes have led him to disregard his own safety, even in a time of extreme danger. This is not merely carelessness. These men conceal another sinister plot in their hearts: they want their master to issue an order."

At the moment Schall von Bell wrote this account, 78 days before the fall of the dynasty, the Chongzhen Emperor dreamed that he was Zhuang Zhou dreaming of a butterfly.

He saw the fall of the Ming, China plunged into darkness for three hundred years, and an extraordinary man emerging to restore the realm.

Convinced that the founding emperor had sent him a dream, he tried to change his ways. On New Year's Day, he pardoned the officials' past offenses in court to steady the people's hearts, took control of the capital's guards, reorganized the capital's army, stockpiled provisions, and trained elite troops.

Seventeen years of working tirelessly from dawn to dusk brought him an unspoken consensus among the officials: every one of them planned to sacrifice the emperor to preserve their own wealth and status.

The Donglin faction called for the crown prince to move south, while the emperor was to remain and die for the country. The grand secretaries feared being blamed for surrendering territory, the eunuchs secretly communicated with the rebels, and the generals sat back and watched with their troops in hand. Not one of them truly cared about the country.

Watch as Chongzhen keeps his composure, carries out a three-month campaign of precision maneuvering, purges traitors inside and out, and ensures the legacy of Chinese civilization.