The Brocade-Clad Guard of the Waning Ming Dynasty

The seventeenth year of the Chongzhen reign, on the eve of Beijing’s fall. Shen Tian, commander of a secret Jinyiwei unit, hands a rosewood box to seventeen-year-old Ye Jinghong and reveals a secret hidden for seventeen years: you are the seventh son of the Chongzhen Emperor. Shen orders him to head south and find the Dragon Head. Then Shen “dies.” Ye Jinghong heads south with the rosewood box and a short blade called Hidden Scale. What he doesn’t know is that Shen is still alive, laying an even grander game in the shadows. He intends to make Ye Jinghong emperor. Ye Jinghong doesn’t want to be emperor. From Beijing to Nanjing, from Jinling to Bashu, from the northern deserts to Liaodong. Jianghu sects, powerful clans, the imperial court, and people from every walk of life: a man who doesn’t want to be emperor and a group of people crushed by history use the most ordinary swordsmanship to carve out a way to survive in the worst of times. The history books won’t record their names. But the jianghu remembers.