Someone asks: In one sentence, what story are you telling?
Answer: Forget one sentence. Five words will do: a pocket-sized The Plum in the Golden Vase!
In the late Northern Song, the Jurchen nomads repeatedly rode south to harass the Central Plains. Calls for peace began to rise in the court. To keep the sandalwood chest from the Secret Archive out of foreign hands, the Grand Marshal entrusted it to Lin Yue, a wealthy merchant from Shandong, and asked him to secretly transport it to Hangzhou, the southern capital.
But the news got out...
