At the height of the Tang dynasty, what bloody secrets lay hidden deep within the palace? Why did Emperor Xuanzong, a brilliant ruler who governed diligently in his early years, become so enthralled by a life of pleasure in his later years that he sowed the seeds of disaster with his own hands?
From the scandalous palace secret of an incestuous "washing-the-baby" ritual to the passionate midnight vows exchanged at the Palace of Eternal Life; from Li Bai drunkenly composing a reply to a foreign letter and Gao Lishi removing his boots, legendary acts of wild abandon, to An Lushan raising his banner in Fanyang as the thunder of two hundred thousand cavalry shook the Central Plains.
This is a brutal portrait of history buried beneath "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow." The day Yang Yuhuan won the emperor's favor was already the day the golden age began to crumble. When the ruler and his court fled in panic through Yanqiu Gate, and the Six Armies refused to advance at Mawei Slope, what was the bloody truth behind that strip of white silk? See how Guo Ziyi turned the tide, and witness a dynasty torn apart and wracked with agony.
Open this book and transmigrate back to the dazzling yet bloody and brutal Tang dynasty, to see how the love of the imperial family gradually became the sacrifice of an entire empire.
