Dragon's Gate [antikvár]

PREFACE BY THE SUMMER of 1865, the North has finally defeated the South in the Civil War, and America works for even greater union. During the war, Abraham Lincoln set in motion a plan to build a transcontinental railroad that will effectively join the western half of America to the eastern half. In 1863, one railroad, the Union Pacific, has begun building westward from Omaha. In that same year, the Central Pacific has started eastward from California. However, in two years, it has only built thirty-one miles of track. By February 1865, the railroad is so desperate that it has begun experimenting with using Chinese crews. At the same time, in China, the boy emperor has survived two more challenges to the rule of his people, the Manchus—a barbarian tribe that has controlled the kingdom for some two hundred years. His generals have crushed two different rebellions. One is the Taiping, or Great Peace, revolt, which has devastated wide areas of China. The other is the Red Turban uprising in southern China in Kwangtung Province, in which over a million people have died during the Manchu suppression. Seeking revenge for the Manchu reprisals, the local clans in turn have started a genocidal war against an ethnic group known as the Strangers because it is believed the Strangers