The Great Ming Divine Machine Battalion: Aid to Korea

In the twentieth year of the Wanli reign, Xu Lin, a company commander in the Divine Engine Battalion, held the finest firearms in the Great Ming, yet had to load them with the cheapest gunpowder. When the order to send troops to Korea arrived, he thought it was just another suicidal expedition.

Then, beneath the walls of Pyongyang, explosives blasted open the defenses. The instant a breach appeared in the smoke, he was the first to charge through. At that moment, the firearm in his hands was aimed not only at the Japanese pirates, but also, in a way, at the rotten foundations of the Great Ming.

In the bloody battle at Byeokjegwan, Ming cavalry clashed with Japanese blades in the mud. Xu Lin saved a dying commander amid the mountain of corpses, unaware that a hidden arrow from the court had already been aimed at his back...

Merit in battle? Soldiers from military households don't deserve any. But Xu Lin tightened his grip on the samurai sword he'd taken from the Japanese pirates and smiled. The cavalry of Liaodong, the grain and pay of Jiangnan, the secret memorials in the Forbidden City: before this empire fell apart, he would forge his own throne in fire.