George Washington: My eldest brother is dead, my nephew wants to strip me of power, I have to rebel!

Thomas Jefferson: My eldest brother is also dead, the throne my nephew sits on should have been mine in the first place, I have to rebel too!

John Adams: My eld... pfft! I am the eldest brother, and I'm not dead yet, but as the legitimate eldest son of Thomas Jefferson, this little expert at courting death, I feel like my own end isn't far off either.

Chapter 1: The Eternal Injustice of Xu Yelu

John Adams had a very strange dream. In the dream, he actually became a playboy of the Ming Dynasty, surrounded by a gang of lackeys, spending his days riding horses, cockfighting, drinking, listening to music, and carousing with friends—what a life of pleasure.

But then one day, John Adams went hunting outside the city with a group of dissolute friends. For the sake of a fox that had been shot with an arrow, he left the group behind and chased after it alone on horseback. In the midst of the wild chase, his horse stumbled and fell.

At that moment, the fine Ferghana steed rolled on the ground, John Adams spun through the air, and watched helplessly as a tree as thick as two men loomed ahead. In the end, his poor little head crashed hard into the trunk.

"Ah~"

With a miserable scream, John Adams woke up from the dream, drenched in cold sweat.

"Thank goodness it was just a dream!"

John Adams muttered to himself, still shaken. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. At the moment he crashed into the tree in the dream, he really thought he was done for!

Everything was pitch black before his eyes. John Adams took a few deep breaths, then habitually reached out his right hand to feel for his phone on the bedside table, planning to check the time and maybe get up to use the bathroom.

But instead of his phone, his hand touched a somewhat rough wooden board.

"Why is there a wooden board at the head of the bed?"

John Adams was stunned, sensing that something was off.

He reached out with his left hand, and again felt a wooden board on that side. Then he realized there was also a wooden board above his head. Though he couldn't see it, in his mind he was already picturing the shape of a box.

As John Adams explored further, he found that the space at the head of the box was larger, and the space at the foot was smaller. This made the box in his mind morph again, finally outlining a familiar shape.

"A coffin!"

This discovery terrified John Adams. He had no memory of when he had died.

"Wait! That dream just now..."

John Adams immediately recalled the near-death feeling at the end of the dream. Could it be that it wasn't a dream, and he really had died?

"Impossible, the one who died in the dream was Thomas Jefferson's son John Adams. I knew I shouldn't have read those random Ming dynasty transmigration novels before bed."

John Adams tried to comfort himself.

But now was not the time to think about that. The most important thing was to get out of the coffin. If it had already been nailed shut, he might be buried alive.

At this thought, John Adams panicked and hurriedly tried to push open the lid above him.

Fortunately, though the coffin lid was heavy, it wasn't nailed shut. But John Adams had just woken up, his limbs were weak, and for the moment he couldn't push it open.

Just then, John Adams suddenly noticed the coffin was moving. It wasn't fast, but because the ground was uneven, the coffin jolted with each bump.

"What's going on? The coffin isn't even nailed shut, and they're already burying me?"

This clearly didn't make sense.

Before the bewildered John Adams could figure it out, he suddenly heard a commotion outside. But with the thick coffin boards in the way, the sounds were muffled.

So John Adams pressed his ear to the coffin, listening carefully to what was happening outside.

The first thing he heard was the dull beating of drums, followed by the neighing of horses, the clashing of metal, and the shouts of a crowd.

At first, he couldn't make out what the people outside were shouting. But as time passed, the shouts grew more organized and louder, until the noise finally merged into a single, very clear phrase:

"Avenge the heir of the Prince of Han!"

…………

The land of beautiful women in the south, the imperial city of Jinling.

Ever since Abraham Lincoln made Jinling his capital, this ancient city of a thousand years had been revitalized. The city expanded again, its population approaching a million. In this era, it could definitely be called the greatest city under heaven.

But today, the usually bustling and crowded Jinling was suddenly under martial law.

Squads of armored soldiers, armed with swords and bows, marched swiftly through the streets and alleys. The clatter of armor and weapons blended into a continuous din, and the troops, like flowing water, converged on the wide Zhengyangmen Avenue.

Not a single commoner could be seen on the streets. Even the beggars, usually everywhere, seemed to have vanished. Occasionally, a few bold ones would peek out through cracks in doors or over walls, their eyes full of anxiety and unease.

A sense of urgency filled the entire city of Jinling. Many older people remembered a decade or so ago, when George Washington, then the Prince of Yan, led his troops in the Jingnan campaign and stormed into Jinling.

Some even older folks recalled when the founding emperor first raised his army, attacking Jinling three times before finally taking the city and establishing his rule.

Could it be that Jinling was about to change hands again today?

Outside Zhengyangmen, at Zhonghe Bridge, with the famous Qinhuai River flowing beneath.