Great Shanghai

Great Shanghai is an urban-rebirth serial novel by Fuchen, published on Qidian and now complete. The story opens in 2006: a man of the "international-grade thug" type, locked up and facing a long prison term, is struck by lightning and transported back to 1928, to an old Shanghai of rampant gangs and foreign concessions. Armed with nearly eighty years of worldly knowledge and experience, he reenters an age of guns, opium, gambling, and secret societies, using a thug's survival instincts to work his way up from the bottom along the Huangpu River, cultivating ties with every faction and entering the concession police force, until he gains a footing in Shanghai. The book advances roughly in three volumes: the first, Wind Howling, Dragon Raging, follows the protagonist as he establishes himself by the Huangpu, meets key figures, and rises in the police; the second, Tycoon of the Foreign Concession, covers the expansion of his power and his involvement in transnational arms deals and commercial rivalries; the third, Dragon Soaring Across the Four Seas, extends the scope to a broader stage. The story weaves in gang clashes, business intrigue, and the historical background of the Shanghai campaign against Japan, and features cameo appearances by real historical figures such as Ma Yongzhen, recreating the social atmosphere of Republican-era Shanghai. Though the protagonist's behavior is often roguish, the narrative centers on how a man from the bottom rises through wits and nerve, turning his fortunes around and setting up his own game, so the book is regarded as a typical web novel of rebirth and upward struggle, of the making of a would-be warlord. It runs to around a million characters, with a pace driven by plot and bravado.