A Love Never Lost

According to Douban's synopsis, the story begins in the aftermath of the Gengzi guobian (庚子国变, "the national upheaval of the Gengzi year," meaning 1900). Liang Xiang (梁乡), a member of the Qing imperial clan, and Yang Kaizhi (杨凯之), a revolutionary, are chosen for different reasons among the first Chinese military students sent to Japan. They are joined by Li Renjun (李人骏), an officer from the New Army, the Qing government's modernized units.

Once there, the three meet Wu Tianbai (吴天白), another revolutionary, and Xie Shuhong (谢菽红), the second daughter of the Kaiwen Tang (开文堂) family. The synopsis says the five become bound together by "the great era," while the Qing imperial clan, the revolutionaries and the Beiyang (北洋) group struggle for power. The story runs through the 1911 Revolution.

The crisis of 1900. The Boxer uprising was an anti-foreign movement that ended in a foreign relief force entering Beijing in August 1900. The Boxer Protocol of September 1901 required China to pay 450 million taels of silver over 39 years, more than the government's annual tax revenue. The episode weakened the Qing's credibility and helped push the dynasty toward the reforms and revolution that follow in the drama.

Why Tokyo. Japan was also where opponents of the dynasty organized: the Tongmenghui (同盟会, "Chinese Revolutionary Alliance"), which aimed to overthrow the Qing, was founded in Tokyo on August 20, 1905. That is the world in which a Qing clansman and a revolutionary can sit in the same classroom.

Three camps. Beiyang (北洋, "Northern Seas") refers to the modernized army faction that would dominate politics in the early Republic. Expect characters to be defined by which of the three camps they belong to, and by whether they stay there.