Nanyang: The Rise of Wu Song

In the year 1785, the South Seas were in turmoil. Siam and Burma were locked in fierce conflict, while Annam was being thrown into chaos by the Tây Sơn forces. On Borneo, the Hakka Chinese had already founded their own “Lanfang Company,” and farther east, the Qing Empire still remained lost in its fantasy of being the supreme Celestial dynasty. Meanwhile, on the world stage, the power of steam was only beginning to emerge. The British were conquering and expanding in India with unstoppable momentum, even attempting to extend their influence to the Malay Peninsula. France was mired in a financial crisis, and Paris was on the verge of becoming a powder keg—though soon, a man named Napoleon would forge that chaos into the foundation of an empire. The Dutch had just suffered defeat in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, and the Dutch East Indies were buried under debt and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It was at this moment that Wu Zhijie, a soul from the future, unexpectedly transmigrated into the son of a Chinese city lord in Songkhla Province, on Siam’s southern frontier. At that very time, the overseas Chinese city founded there was already in a precarious state. Refusing to let tragedy repeat itself, he resolved to change his family’s fate and restore the former glory of the Chinese in Nanyang. Everything would begin with the battle now before him.