China - Edward Rutherfurd

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Résumé :

China, the Nineteenth Century: a vast, ancient empire closed to foreigners.
Opium is the key to open its borders: it will buy silver and this in turn will buy tea. Western adventurers like John Trader make a fortune as the Empire sinks beneath a miasma of addiction, war, rebellion and tragedy.
This is an unforgettable, sweeping tale of nineteenth-century China told from both sides of the divide: of Mei-Ling, the humble village woman who will become a mandarin's concubine; the Empress Dowager Cixi who seizes the throne as weak Emperors crumble before the foreigners; Lacquer Nail, the eunuch who adores her but will see his beloved Summer Palace burned; Guanji the scourge of the Taiping revolt as it rages across the great river valleys and cities of the endless land; Shi-Rong whose Confucian ideals are snuffed out and then reignited in the cauldron.
And, at the last, as the century dies, the Boxers rise with their insatiable hatred of the foreign imperialists. And now, at the end of his life, John Trader returns to Beijing. It's time to redress the wrongs of the past and, perhaps, to save the last person dear to him.