In the crumbling days of the Qing Dynasty in the city of Suzhou, the stench of blood hangs in the air as a young soldier pushes his way through the streets. As a failed peasant-scholar leads the biggest uprising against any emperor in Chinese history, the terror felt by all the citizens of Suzhou is very real, for the heart of their city is being transformed into a mass execution ground.

Zhou Yu has quickly become known in the rebel army as a fearless and mighty warrior. But after he helplessly watches the decapitation of his brother in the town square, he is forced to flee Suzhou. As soon as his father smuggles Yu into his missionary aunt's Shanghai sanctuary, she risks all by hiding him and securing him passage on a ship headed for Australia. As Yu's adventures in a new world begin, he secures work in the goldfields where the white man is hungry for a fast profit.

In this compelling story, a young soldier soon discovers that the tentacles of China and his bloody past have the power to reach beyond the seas to a remote village in faraway New Zealand, forever teaching him about the burden of life and death in a changing world.