In the first year of the Jingkang era, the Jin army marched south and Bianjing was in peril.
The entire court knelt on the floor, weeping and begging the emperor to cede territory and sue for peace. They even wanted him to renounce his imperial title and call himself the “Emperor Nephew”!
On the dragon throne, Li Shimin had just awakened. Looking at the edict in his hand calling for territory to be ceded in exchange for peace, he burst out laughing.
“Since I ascended the throne, I’ve never written anything like this!”
He surveyed the “loyal ministers and valiant generals” kneeling before him. “Who told me to cede territory? Step forward. I’ll reward him with a red stick!”
That night, the Jin envoy was still at the post station, dreaming of entering Bianjing, unaware that:
On the city walls, an old man named Li Gang had been reinstated in the dead of night;
By the Yellow River, a stubborn man named Zong Ze had received a secret edict to come to the emperor’s aid;
In Xiangzhou, a young man named Yue Fei had just enlisted, already itching for a fight!
And the newly arrived “Emperor Qinzong of Song” was muttering to himself as he studied the map:
“Wanyan Zongwang? When I fought my way into the Xuanwu Gate, your ancestors hadn’t even been born yet!”
A mere two hundred thousand Jin troops? I captured two kings at Hulao Pass and defeated a hundred thousand with three thousand men. You call this an army at the gates?
See how an eternal emperor, transported into the Jingkang era, takes a crew with all the odds stacked against them and forges a golden age from the brink of ruin!
Quite interesting