Description
This is the story of China and its great clash with the West from the Nineteenth Century into the next, from the moment the Emperor decrees the Opium trade must cease to the cusp of Revolution.
From Hong Kong to Beijing to the Great Wall, from the exotic wonders of the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City, to squalid village huts, a century-long conflict rages.
A kaleidoscope of people are caught up in the struggle: a young village wife struggling with the rigid traditions of her people; Manchu empresses and warriors; powerful eunuchs; fanatical Taiping and Boxer Rebels; savvy Chinese pirates; artists; concubines; scoundrels and heroes; well-intentioned missionaries and the rapacious merchants, diplomats and soldiers of the West.
Fortunes will rise and fall as an Empire is torn apart.
