Under the Power

When the government loses a large amount of silver, Lu Yi and Yuan Jinxia are ordered to investigate together, and neither welcomes the arrangement. Netflix describes a shrewd detective teamed with an imperial guard she hates. English Wikipedia adds that they work through cases of murder, betrayal, conspiracy, piracy and rebellion, and that the investigations widen into the politics of the court. One r/CDrama reviewer calls it a "Sherlock Holmes-light style story," with Lu Yi as a cut-throat Holmes and Yuan Jinxia as his Watson.

The drama premiered on December 28, 2019, and runs 55 episodes of about 45 minutes each. Length is its most debated feature: some viewers found it right for the story, others felt the back half lost its way.

The story is set under the Jiajing Emperor (嘉靖), who reigned from 1521 to 1567. Yan Song (严嵩) served as grand secretary from 1542 until his dismissal in June 1562. His son Yan Shifan (严世蕃), who handled petitioners and bribes, was widely accused of corruption, exiled in 1562 and executed in 1564 or 1565. In the series he is the central villain, and the court faction is called yandang (严党, "the Yan faction"). Attacks by wokou (倭寇, "Japanese pirates," the Chinese term for the coastal raiders of the era) peaked in the 1550s. As an adaptation of a novel, the series is fiction set against a real court.

Jinyiwei (锦衣卫, "Embroidered Uniform Guard") was founded under the Hongwu Emperor in the fourteenth century as his bodyguard. It took orders directly from the emperor, could arrest, interrogate and punish people including nobles, and was disbanded in 1644 when the Ming fell. A constable like Yuan Jinxia works for the civil authorities, not for the throne's own police.

The source is the novel Jin Yi Zhi Xia by Lan Seshi (蓝色狮). Yin Tao (尹涛) directs; Impact Media (艺能传媒) and H&R Century Pictures (欢瑞世纪) produced it. The English title is the one used by TMDB, iQIYI's international service and Netflix.