Buried Ming

Buried Ming is a long-form time-travel historical military novel by Hanfeng Fujian, serialized on Zongheng Chinese Network. Spanning roughly 4.03 million characters and over a thousand chapters, it was completed in October 2023. Set during the Chongzhen era, the story unfolds against a dynasty on the brink of collapse: outside, the Later Jin cavalry hammer at the passes; within, years of natural disaster, famine, and displaced multitudes leave the land strewn with the starved and human life cheap as chaff. Xiao Tianjian, a young man from the modern era, wakes one morning to find himself in drought-stricken Shaanxi in the seventh year of Chongzhen and begins simply by begging to survive. Enduring cold indifference and the lash of corvée officers, he comes to understand the harsh rules of survival in a lawless age. Starting by organizing a band for mutual defense, he gathers his earliest followers—Tietou, Zhao Erlu, Feng Gouzi, and others—and forges them into an armed force known as the Xingtian Army, grounded in strict discipline and systematic training. He then maneuvers and fights among Ming government troops, the Later Jin, and the various peasant armies. The novel vividly portrays military contest in an age of transition between cold steel and firearms: spear formations, javelins, catapults, wheeled cannons, standardized granulated gunpowder, triangular bayonets, and other new tactics and weaponry appear in turn, alongside base-area construction, food and logistics, and institutional reform. Boldly rewriting the real historical record, the story has Xiao rescue Lu Xiangsheng at the Battle of Julu and alters the fates of Chongzhen, Dorgon, and Li Zicheng, ultimately leading its protagonist toward the climactic struggle to found a new dynasty.