Saving the Song Dynasty: The Voyage Begins with an Emperor

I woke up as the eight-year-old emperor of the Southern Song’s exiled court, Zhao Shi, Emperor Duanzong.

Before me stretched a raging sea. Behind me came the Mongol cavalry, fierce as wolves and tigers. Wen Tianxiang had been captured, Lu Xiufu was going gray with worry, and Zhang Shijie stood alone against the odds. History said I would die of illness in six months, and the Southern Song would meet its end at Yashan.

But now I’m here.

Surrender? Drown? No!

In my hands, I have the nautical charts of an entire age. In my mind, a storehouse of knowledge from more than a thousand years in the future.

If we can’t beat them on land, then we’ll take to the sea! We’ll establish a royal court amid the waves, build wealth through trade, and arm our fleet with cannons.

Gather the scattered people, open up the southern seas, and connect with the world. While the Mongol khan still eyes the Central Plains like a choice morsel, my empire will already be basking in the sun of the Indian Ocean.

Years later, the Yuan emperor sends an envoy to my “Divine Capital on the Sea,” demanding to know why I refuse to submit to the Celestial Empire.

I gesture to the forest of warships behind me and ask with a smile:

“Now, which of us is the Celestial Empire?”