Turning the Tide at the End of the Ming Dynasty

In the final years of the Ming dynasty, fires of war raged everywhere and the empire crumbled. The rebel king breached the capital, and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself on Coal Hill. The Han realm stood on the brink of disaster. The Hongguang court, clinging to power in the south, could do nothing to turn the tide. Instead, it fell into the hands of treacherous officials such as Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng. Rotten within and lost in a life of drunken revelry, they paid no heed to the Qing army’s imminent advance. Just as the land fell into ruin and the people cried out in anguish, a mysterious man named Mo Aotian appeared quietly in Jinling. He possessed astonishing powers: swifter than lightning, indestructible, decisive in action, and far-seeing in thought, as if he existed beyond this world. No one knew where he came from. They only knew that he seemed to bear some kind of mission.