The Five Dynasties are in turmoil, the fires of war still burning. The Chenqiao Mutiny changes the dynasty overnight.
Shitou, a boy from Ruzhou, survives amid blood and fire. He joins his fellow villagers in tending mulberry groves and weathering calamities. Thanks to his skill at raising silkworms, he is summoned to the capital, where he witnesses the peaceful years of the Great Song's founding.
From a night of terror and flames to a world at peace,
from an unknown nobody to a guardian of the land and its people,
he has seen old soldiers drink, schoolchildren study, spring silkworms honored, and children celebrate their first birthdays.
He also witnesses a dynasty rise from turmoil to peace, and ordinary people take root and grow with the times.
Smoke rises over the mulberry fields, boats travel the Bian River.
This is a chronicle of everyday life in the early Northern Song, depicting survival in an age of chaos and the peaceful lives that followed.
