慶曆泗年春

This was the year European civilization came loaded with silver, silk, and gunpowder, colliding passionately amid the black currents and monsoon winds. This was the year the Great Ming - fresh from the disaster at Sarhu, with two emperors dead in quick succession - stood swaying in the storm. For the world, it was the golden age of sail. For the Ming, it was a fine season for factional strife. Into this age of great contest came Lin Qian, quietly arriving in the Ming to become a sea bandit - sea trade in his left hand, sea power in his right - raising a frenzy of construction for a maritime empire.