In the Jiashen year, the nation fell and the capital was captured. Chongzhen died for his country.
The prince Zhu Cijiong survived the chaos by the skin of his teeth, only to fall into the shattered land of Qilu.
The empire was crumbling, and what remained of the Ming dynasty was on the verge of collapse. The Manchu cavalry eyed the south from beyond its borders, while nobles and civil officials schemed against one another at home. Refugees and starving corpses littered the land, and conspiracies lurked everywhere.
He had no great army and no secure territory, only the will to survive and restore the dynasty. Using the turmoil as a chessboard, he laid plans of yin and yang, recruiting refugees and organizing a new army amid the powerful clans, stirring up the winds in Qufu.
The young regent takes the pieces in hand, and one move shakes the mountains and rivers of Qilu.
Will he remain trapped by the shackles of a rotten old empire, or cleave through the decay of a chaotic age and fight for the faint hope of a Ming restoration among the ruined mountains and rivers?
Kong Yanzhi: That little prince is scheming against me again.
Zhu Cijiong: I know that he knows, and he knows that I know he knows. But what does that matter? He understands everything, yet understands nothing.
This is not a transmigration story. There is no technological steamrolling and no golden finger that lets the protagonist foresee the future. At its heart, the story explores a path to restoring the Ming within the existing institutions of the Ming dynasty, and is realistic throughout.
The author has spent years working in industry and has no intention of writing a story where technology saves the world. The book is grounded in a method of governance unchanged for a thousand years: checks and balances, and the division of power.
Readers who dislike realistic political maneuvering are kindly asked to go easy on the comments.
