Hongwu: My Base Connects to Myriad Worlds

Chen Fei, 25, is a discharged soldier who has delivered takeout and worked construction. The moment he opens his eyes, he finds himself in the fifteenth year of Hongwu, reborn as the son of a destitute military household in Shandong. His family has nothing, his mother is coughing up blood, and yet a modern military base, hollowed out from an entire mountain, has appeared out of nowhere behind their home.

The System drops off a beginner's gift pack, then unbinds and runs away. The base's administrator is Makaf, a foul-tempered old Soviet uncle; Kate is a fretful British mom; the twelve members of Task Force 141 have Chinese faces and speak Chinese, though in their previous lives they were all foreign special forces; and the intelligence officer Jack is a mischievous friend whose identity is a mystery. The android troops must be bought with gold, silver, and antiques, and come with complete memory templates: farmers, veterans, artisans, and big sisters from literacy classes. Every one of them has a father, a mother, and a hometown. They can laugh, curse, and miss home.

Chen Fei calls them “Uncle,” “Bro,” and “Sis.” They call him “Boss Chen.”

From raiding rich households at night to earn his first pot of gold, to ambushing the Northern Yuan, navigating court politics, and quietly making a fortune during the Jingnan Campaign, Chen Fei leads his whole big family from a single prefecture in Yanzhou to all of Shandong, carving out a territory of his own in the Hongwu era. He neither claims the throne nor takes sides. He has just one principle: make sure ordinary people have enough to eat.

But the base can do more than connect to the Hongwu era. The door behind the mountain can also open into other times and worlds.

Next stop: the Qin Dynasty. Before the First Emperor, will he be the “wild man from beyond the borders” who presents potatoes and corn, or a thorn in Zhao Gao's side?

The stop after that: the Tang Dynasty. On the eve of the An Lushan Rebellion, he is a grain merchant of unknown origins in Fanyang, with “carrier pigeons” that travel faster than rebel horses and a battalion of repeating crossbows.

And then there's the Yongle era. Among the fleet of ships Zheng He takes on his voyages to the Western Seas, there is one more vessel that needs no sails