This book is set between the reigns of Renzong and Huizong of the Northern Song Dynasty. It tells the life of Chen Shouzheng, an ordinary man in Qiantang, in the first person. I was born into a peasant family in the countryside. I had no talent or power and struggled to survive in the world with only my hands. From working in the fields, dealing with taxes and labor, to moving to the city to make a living due to the changing times, he has gone through the ups and downs of the market, Wang Anshi's reforms, and the ups and downs of party strife, witnessing the prosperity and undercurrent of the Song Dynasty. I married a wife, had children, and worked hard for half my life. There was no earth-shattering achievement, only firewood, rice, oil, salt, life, old age, illness, death, and the ups and downs of the times. Through the eyes of a common man, he sees the real life of the people at the bottom of the Northern Song Dynasty and writes about the lives of ordinary people in the great era.
