柯山夢

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the northern lands were engulfed in the smoke of war, with bones piled high like mountains; south of the Yangtze, small bridges spanned flowing waters, with song and dance celebrating peace. Amid the internal and external troubles of a dying dynasty, a scheming office director rose powerfully, sounding the final clarion call of China. A true hero changes the fate of heaven. Brutal and tragic ancient warfare, the authentic streets of the Ming Dynasty, history created by one small figure after another—unfolding a magnificent yet tenderly lingering picture of the late Ming. Book club QQ group: 145034435

In the final years of the Ming dynasty, Spain and Japan gradually restricted the outflow of silver; the capital inflows the Ming had enjoyed since the early sixteenth century went into reverse, and the dynasty's coexisting merchant economy and smallholder economy were struck simultaneously by deflation. Compounded by the Little Ice Age, the dominoes of a chaotic age toppled one after another. In the eleventh month of the sixth year of Chongzhen, roving bandits crossed south at Mianchi, bursting forth like a ruptured abscess and sweeping across the Central Plains. In the seventh year of Chongzhen, the Later Jin armies that had ravaged the north for over a decade swept through Xuanfu and Datong as if through empty land. The Great Ming, a dynasty standing for nearly three hundred years, teetered in the storm. At this moment the protagonist arrives — a lowly yamen runner in Tongcheng County, South Zhili. The story begins with a dead rat sailing through the air.