Ancient Scrolls of Mountains and Rivers: A Thousand-Mile Journey Through Bian River's Changing Shores

During the Xining era of the Great Song, new reforms surge like a tide, while undercurrents roil. A wrongful massacre in the capital, Bianliang, forces Shen Lingwei, daughter of a doctor at the Imperial College, to conceal her identity and seek refuge on the desolate banks of the Bian River. Armed with her family’s farming manual, she takes the mulberry fields as her canvas and the canal as her ink, reclaiming wasteland and growing mulberry trees in a corner of Suzhou, then establishing a flourishing silk trade along the Bian River. Xiao Jingheng, a disgraced member of the imperial clan, guards the passes and manages river works, protecting the people with both steely resolve and tenderness. The two survive palace and household rivalries, build livelihoods amid the bustle of the common folk, and grow their family in the misty rains of Jiangnan. This is not only a tale of making a fortune through farming, but also a sweeping portrait of the Great Song, spanning Guanzhong, Heluo, and Jiangnan. Drawing on the Song Huiyao Jigao and Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, the story is grounded in real historical geography and brought to life through the warmth and coldness of human affairs. It rekindles the spirit of a thousand-year-old culture among the mulberry fields of the Bian River and the willows by palace walls, ultimately continuing the legacy of the timeless Ancient Scroll of Mountains and Rivers.