Sunset in the Forbidden City, Sunrise in the South China Sea

On March 19, the 17th year of Chongzhen's reign, Li Zicheng captured Beijing and Chongzhen hanged himself at Meishan. But at the same time, a fleet composed of Zheng's maritime merchants, fugitive civil servants, and bankrupt military households, carrying the last batch of firearms and Nanyang silver, discovered the "Yongle Treasure House" left behind by the previous dynasty in the depths of the South China Sea - there were not only the shipbuilding blueprints and artillery casting methods sealed by Zheng He during his voyages to the West, but also a deliberately erased "Kun Yu Wanguo Navigation". When the north was caught in a melee between Dashun, Qing, and Nanming, this maritime force chose not to go north to King Qin, but to go south—based on Luzon, annexing Malacca, controlling the spice route, and building a maritime empire spanning the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean in ten years.