The Ming Shall Rise: Starting from Nanyang to Support the Dynasty

The year is 1648 – the fifth year of the Qing Shunzhi era and the second year of the Ming Yongli reign. Across a fractured empire, fortunes shift and loyalties fray. Li Chengdong and Jin Shenghuan turn their coats back to the Ming, briefly rekindling hopes of a Southern Ming revival. Yet Dorgon dispatches two Qing armies southward, their iron cavalry bearing down on Lingnan. In Hunan, He Tengjiao and Du Yinxi each nurse their own designs; in Guilin, Qu Shisi clings desperately to a crumbling stronghold. Zheng Success watches from across the strait off Xiamen, while Zhang Huangyan fights on alone in eastern Zhejiang. Li Dingguo bides his time in Yunnan, even as Sun Kewang’s ambition begins to fester. The Thirteen Fortresses of Kuidong hold the mountains, and the southwestern chieftains hedge their bets with both sides. Into this chaos steps Lin Siyuan, a man who lands at Guangzhou under the guise of a Nanyang merchant. He has not come to trade. He has come to back a claimant emperor – and to win, alongside him, against every odd.