Choosing the fifteenth year of Shaoxing (AD 1145) as the starting point of the story is a very ingenious setting. At this time, it had been nearly twenty years since the Jingkang Revolution (1127), and the Southern Song Dynasty regime had initially established a foothold in Jiangnan. Shortly after the signing of the first "Shaoxing Peace Treaty" (1141), a fragile peace was maintained between the Song and Jin Dynasties, which provided a breeding ground for commercial development and the fermentation of internal conflicts. Yue Fei was killed in the eleventh year of Shaoxing (1142), and Qin Hui took over the power. The Southern Song Dynasty court entered what historians call the "Qin Hui dictatorship of Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty." The society was stable on the surface, but in fact there was an undercurrent. This provides an excellent dramatic space for the protagonist to intervene: there is the possibility of business development, but political risks are hidden everywhere.
The main stages of the story - Quanzhou and Lin'an, accurately capture the pulse of the Southern Song Dynasty. Quanzhou, known as "the largest port in the East" during the Song and Yuan Dynasties, was the center of the Maritime Silk Road, bringing together "people from all over the world" with diverse cultures and a strong business atmosphere. This is an ideal testing ground for the protagonist to use modern knowledge for business practice. Lin'an (now Hangzhou), as the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, was the country's political, economic, and cultural center. Its prosperity can be seen in notes such as "Mengliang Lu". The French sinologist Châte Hernay once commented that China in the 13th century was "astonishing in its degree of modernization." Directing the protagonist's activities from Quanzhou to Lin'an means that the contradiction will rise from the local commercial level to the core level of the national economy and even political power.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, the state's financial structure underwent fundamental changes.
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