Oh yeah that is SUPER interesting! A friend and I were kicking around the idea of how David Copperfield might be adapted as a c-drama and I kept getting the sense that a Republican Era setting would fit well (there's modernity, and disruptions of settled class/family hierarchies etc, and the anxieties around that). A key point of divergence I guess is the colonial/expansionist approach of the Victorian age vs Republican Era China being the target of said expansion. Would really love to see someone who knows more about this than me delve into it!