Plotting direction with revolutionary from Chinese dynasty (8)
I believe the answer is:
scheming
'plotting' is the definition.
(scheming is a kind of plotting)
'direction with revolutionary from chinese dynasty' is the wordplay.
'direction' becomes 'S' (S is an example).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'revolutionary' becomes 'che' (Che Guevara the Marxist revolutionary).
'from' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'chinese dynasty' becomes 'Ming' (historical Chinese dynasty).
's'+'che'+'ming'='SCHEMING'
(Other definitions for scheming that I've seen before include "Devious" , "cunning" , "Planning secretly" , "far from 10 [WIDE EYED]" , "Duplicitous" .)