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.