Chapter 1

On the morning of February 6, 1852, beside a forest on a hill in the Dàyáoshān Mountains of Guangxi, a group of young soldiers were on the battlefield. They were dressed in the common attire of the people of Guangxi, wearing black coarse cloth short jackets and shorts, with white coarse cloth waistbands and white cloth leg wrappings. Due to the cold, their feet were wrapped in originally white, now dirty and unrecognizable cloths. Their heads were not wrapped in the typical Guangxi headscarves; instead, they had their long hair tied into topknots and wore white coarse cloth headbands, giving them the appearance of a funeral procession at first glance.

A young man with thick eyebrows and large eyes stood in the center of the battlefield. His face, though angular, retained the youthful roundness typical of his age, not exceeding 20 years. This young man was named Wei Ze, who was 19 years old and held the rank of Sima in the Taiping Army. Wei Ze approached a Qing soldier's corpse, who appeared to be a minor officer with a single-edged sword at his waist. In the battle that had just ended, Wei Ze and his subordinates had eliminated over a dozen Qing soldiers. The officer, upon seeing Wei Ze and his men charge out, had tried to flee but was caught and killed by Wei Ze with a spear thrust, without even having the chance to draw his sword.

Breathing heavily from the intense exertion, Wei Ze bent down and removed the sword from the corpse. Upon drawing the sword from its scabbard, he found it to be a common iron sword, nothing extraordinary.

"Fourth Uncle, should we chase after those Yao people?" asked a Taiping Army corporal named Wei Changrong, who was beside him. The group of Qing soldiers had encountered a group of Yao people, and Wei Ze and his men, who were on the march, had seen them. Wei Ze had set up an ambush and led half of his men to launch a surprise attack. The Qing soldiers, seeing the Taiping Army suddenly emerge from the forest, had panicked and fled down the hill. They ran straight into the trap set by Wei Ze, were surrounded, and were quickly annihilated. The Yao people, upon seeing the commotion, had fled up the hill and were now long gone.

Hearing his nephew and corporal Wei Changrong ask, Wei Ze smiled and replied, "Who are we going to chase? We're not here to fight the Yao people on the mountain. Quickly, finish cleaning up the battlefield and continue on!"

"Commander Wei, what should we do with these Qing soldiers' bodies?" asked another Taiping Army soldier. The speaker was named Zhang Yingchen, a corporal under Wei Ze's command.

"Don't leave them on the road. We're here to scout. After searching them, find an uninhabited ravine and throw them in," Wei Ze answered.

The twenty-odd enthusiastic Taiping Army soldiers began searching the Qing soldiers' bodies, taking their money, weapons, and even the cloth shoes from their feet. They also removed the Qing soldiers' identity tags and waistbands.

Wei Ze stood by, watching the soldiers search. He had initially intended to see what they found, but his attention was involuntarily drawn to the heads of the Qing soldiers. This was not the first time Wei Ze had seen Qing soldiers' heads. They all had the 1852 Qing official hairstyle, known as "money rat tail." This hairstyle involved shaving the sides and back of the head, leaving only a small patch of hair on the top, which was shaped like a coin, and the center part of the hair was braided and hung down like a rat's tail. This "rat tail" had to be able to pass through a copper coin.

Although he had personally killed these Qing soldiers, the initial surge of killing intent had largely subsided. However, seeing the "money rat tail" hairstyle on the Qing soldiers' heads still stirred a strong sense of hatred in Wei Ze. This was not because he was bloodthirsty, but because of his unique background. Compared to the hundreds of men and women in the Taiping Army who held the rank of Sima, and the over 20,000 soldiers in the entire Taiping Army, Wei Ze was undoubtedly the most special. He was a time traveler.

Three months ago, Wei Ze, the Sima, was a 21st-century technician specializing in propeller design and manufacturing. After graduating from university, he was assigned to a large state-owned shipbuilding company in the north. Under the arrangement of his father, a senior engineer, Wei Ze followed the industry's standard practice and was assigned to work at the grassroots level for over two years. He learned and familiarized himself with various departments in the shipbuilding industry, and then was transferred back to the design department. After a week of using drawing boards and CAD software on his computer, Wei Ze found himself "awakening" as a 19-year-old "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom soldier" at the end of 1851. After three months of hardship, Wei Ze was now leading five five-man teams as a "Liang Sima."

Returning to 1851, Wei Ze naturally experienced various strong feelings of discomfort. One of the most intense was the strong aversion he felt upon seeing the "money rat tail" hairstyle.

Misled by the media he had seen, Wei Ze had heard of the "money rat tail" but had always assumed that the Qing hairstyle was the "yinyang head" with the front of the head shaved and the back of the head braided. When he first saw the "money rat tail" after his time travel, the sight of the greenish scalp and the ridiculous braid made him fully understand why the Han people had rebelled against the Qing's "hair change order."

As a student of shipbuilding, Wei Ze had to study the history of Chinese shipbuilding, which inevitably involved the modern history of China. Young people graduating from university in the 21st century learned about China's glorious past and saw a future where China would surpass the United States to become the world's largest economic power within a decade. The era when China's shipbuilding industry lagged behind the world was undoubtedly during the Qing dynasty, a time when China suffered endless humiliation, which brought a deep sense of pain to young people like Wei Ze who grew up during China's rapid rise.

China had a glorious past and a bright future, and the root cause of China's century of decline and humiliation was undoubtedly the corrupt and decadent Qing dynasty.

Like ordinary 21st-century youth, Wei Ze firmly believed in the unshakable righteousness of anti-Qing sentiment during the Qing era. Like 21st-century Chinese youth, Wei Ze had many ethnic friends, including Manchu friends. Most of these young people were born and raised in urban areas of the new China, and even the young friends from ethnic minorities did not oppose the abolition of ethnic divisions. Therefore, Wei Ze's intense hatred for the Qing was quite general and not specifically targeted.

As for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Wei Ze's knowledge was limited to what he had to memorize for history exams. However, when he saw the disgusting "money rat tail" on the heads of the Qing soldiers, he immediately resolved to follow the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which he was not very familiar with, to overthrow the Qing.

Beauty and ugliness are easily distinguishable. The hairstyles and clothing of the Taiping Army were quite different from the traditional "high hats and wide sashes" of China. Historically, the Qing dynasty defamed the Taiping Army as "hair bandits" and "long-haired bandits" because they did not shave their heads and instead let their hair grow long and loose. In Guangxi, where the custom of wrapping the head in a headscarf was common, the Taiping Army soldiers, who had long hair, wore various headscarves, giving them a bohemian look.

Although the only reason Wei Ze could fully identify with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was their hairstyle, this one reason was enough for him, who had already resolved to oppose the Qing.

The search was now complete, and the Qing soldiers' bodies were left with only pants without waistbands. Their upper garments were also stripped off, and since it was winter, the extra clothing helped the Taiping Army soldiers stay warm. Wei Ze thought for a moment and then cut off the braids from the Qing soldiers' heads. Seeing the puzzled look on Wei Changrong's face, Wei Ze smiled and said, "The braids aren't heavy. We can take them back to claim credit!"

Guangxi is known for its vast mountains, and the Dàyáoshān Mountains are lush and green. There was a ravine near the battlefield, and the Qing soldiers' bodies were thrown into it, quickly disappearing from sight. The weapons left on the battlefield were the only things the Qing soldiers could leave behind. Among the dozen or so Qing soldiers, half carried long spears, and the other half carried matchlock guns. This was another thing Wei Ze could not immediately accept upon returning to this era. The Qing army was actually an army equipped with firearms.

History textbooks stated that the Qing army's equipment was backward and that it was no match for foreign armies. However, the textbooks did not detail that the Qing army was already semi-armed with firearms at this time. Wei Ze and his men had walked from Yong'an City, south of the Dàyáoshān Mountains, to this location. The Qing army was currently besieging Yong'an City, which was occupied by the Taiping Army. Among the Qing soldiers besieging Yong'an, over 60% were equipped with firearms, and both the northern and southern camps of the Qing army had a large number of cannons. This was very different from the Qing army that Wei Ze had imagined, which was armed with swords and spears.

At first, Wei Ze even thought he had traveled to another planet similar to Earth. After three months, he confirmed that he had indeed returned to the Qing dynasty. The main equipment of the Qing army was undoubtedly these matchlock guns and cannons. This realization did not make Wei Ze think that the Qing's equipment was not so bad, but rather made him feel even more despair about the Qing and the China of this era.

In the arduous war history of the new China, the great army had a significant technological gap in its military production capabilities and weapons compared to the enemy. The predecessors fought a grueling war against the industrialized Japanese with meager resources and tenaciously expanded the enemy's rear bases, gradually reclaiming China's territory from the invaders.

The Qing's matchlock guns, though inferior to the flintlock guns popular at the time, were far from the gap between the Eighth Route Army, which had only five bullets per battle, and the enemy. Given the limited gap in weapons, the Qing had signed numerous humiliating treaties, which made it clear that the Qing had to be eliminated. Without eliminating the Qing, there would be no future for China. Wei Ze was firmly convinced of this.

The Qing soldiers carried little money, and after Wei Ze recorded it, he had the logistics corporal Lin Asheng collect the money.

"Move out!" Wei Ze ordered. The 26-man squad picked up their equipment and, led by Wei Ze, continued northeast.