During the Zhengde era of the Great Ming.

George Carter, seated on the dragon throne, was having the time of his life, while the Eight Tigers and the ministers in the court were locked in fierce conflict. Disasters plagued the country, leaving countless refugees homeless and wandering.

The Ming maritime ban was virtually a dead letter, with rampant smuggling fueled by collusion between southern coastal officials and merchants. The seas were a chaotic battleground of competing powers, with no semblance of order; pirates and sea traders were two sides of the same coin, locked in brutal and intense competition.

Japan was in the midst of its most tumultuous Sengoku period, with the shogun and regional daimyos constantly at war. Large numbers of impoverished Japanese took to the seas, becoming wako pirates who harassed the Ming coastline.

Spain was busy colonizing the Americas while desperately seeking a westward sea route to the Ming.

Portuguese ships had already reached Malacca and were about to make their first close contact with the Ming.

In this era poised to determine the course of history, Charles Bennett, who had died from smuggling in his previous life, is reborn as a bankrupt young master on the southern coast. For the sake of his family and a better life, he has no choice but to go with the flow of the times and throw himself into the surging tide of smuggling.