Reborn in the Ming Dynasty, 1620

On the first day of the ninth month in the first year of the Taichang reign, Ming Guangzong Zhu Changluo dies suddenly, and undercurrents surge through the Forbidden City.

When he wakes, a modern man has become Zhu Youjian, the ninth-year-old fifth son of the emperor. He is not yet the Chongzhen Emperor, and the Great Ming has not yet reached the brink of ruin. But he knows that in twenty-four years, rebels will break through Beijing, the iron cavalry will sweep across the Central Plains, and he will ultimately hang himself on Coal Hill.

The mystery of the palace transfer, the rise of the eunuch faction, the flames of war in Liaodong, natural disasters and popular uprisings... Faced with a dynasty so burdened by entrenched ills that it seems beyond saving, he decides to begin with the first pawn in the inner palace, changing the fate of his elder brother Zhu Youxiao and the fate of all under heaven.

But as history returns again and again to its familiar course, he begins to wonder:

Is he rewriting history, or has history been waiting for him all along?