In the fourth year of Xianchun, a small official from the Shipping Department found three rusty ingots and was forced to embark on a desperate voyage to sneak into Chinese civilization.
In the late Southern Song Dynasty, Lin'an City was still immersed in the warm breeze of West Lake singing and dancing. The Municipal Shipping Department promoted Zhao Yanqing, a cautious low-level bureaucrat who just wanted to preserve his salary and family. During a routine inspection, he discovered something that shouldn't be there - three ingots of fine iron branded with the palace's "Phoenix Fire Seal" were being smuggled north on a merchant ship belonging to the wealthy businessman Pu's family.
Overnight, a bloody arrow of warning was shot at the door lintel, secret summons from the Privy Council followed one after another, and the young son's life became a bargaining chip. Only then did Zhao Yanqing realize that what he had come into contact with was not ordinary smuggling, but an interest network that extended from the Lin'an Palace to the Mongolian tent, and was watered with the blood of the entire empire. The peace-seeking faction is ready to exchange resources for peace, while the resistance faction is leaving the last fire in the dark.
If you retreat, you will join in the evil trend and save your life; if you advance, your body will be shattered and your family will be harmed. Zhao Yanqing made a third choice in a desperate situation: he decided to become that "stowaway".
This is not an escape, but an expedition in the opposite direction
Carrying the evidence and secret messages obtained with blood, he went south to Quanzhou, went deep into Champa and Chenla, and traveled through the Southeast Asian islands. Before the empire overthrows, he must carry out a mission that is more desperate than defending the imperial court, and more noble than just surviving: to transport the seeds of Chinese civilization - classics, skills, star maps and beliefs - out of the sinking land, and in the vast South China Sea, to find a "tomorrow" for China that may never come.
