In the twelfth year of Chongzhen, or 1639,
Zhang Shouyan opened a space-time wormhole leading to Suzhou in the Great Ming.
In Suzhou, there are the beautiful and devoted Dong Xiaowan, and the once peerless Chen Yuanyuan.
But Zhang Shouyan has his eye on more than beauties: he also covets the most precious thing of this age.
Rebel bandits and the Later Jin, the deserts and the Western Regions,
Looking across the globe, Tokugawa Iemochi has just completed the great work of closing Japan to the outside world. Russia has entered the most powerful Romanov dynasty in its history. The Cossacks of the mighty United Kingdom of Ulitsa are plotting a revolt. The Ottoman Empire is on the verge of decline. The Thirty Years' War, which will bring down the Holy Roman Empire, is drawing to a close. In the British Isles, Oliver Cromwell is planning to send his monarch to the executioner's block.
A new empire, one far greater than the Mongol Empire, is rising in the East.
