During the Zhengde era of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Houzhao on the imperial throne amused himself endlessly, while the Eight Tigers and the court officials battled fiercely. Disasters struck across the country, leaving countless refugees homeless. The Ming sea ban was all but meaningless, as officials and merchants along the southern coast colluded in rampant smuggling. The seas were a chaotic patchwork of competing forces with no order whatsoever. Pirates and maritime merchants were two sides of the same coin, locked in ruthless, fierce competition. Japan was in the thick of its Warring States period, with the shogun and regional daimyo at war without end. Large numbers of impoverished Japanese took to the sea and became wokou pirates, harassing the Ming coast. Spain was colonizing the Americas while desperately trying to open a sea route eastward to the Ming. Portuguese ships had already reached Malacca, and their first close encounter with the Ming was just around the corner. In this era, poised to decide the course of history, Zhou Zhong transmigrated as a bankrupt young master on the southern coast. To secure a good life for himself and his family, he had no choice but to go with the tide and plunge into the surging wave of smuggling.
