After the Anshi Rebellion, the defenders of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty were forgotten by the court.
Qiuci City is isolated in the Western Region, without food, aid, and news.
Zhao Ling guarded the city wall for ten years.
There is a line of words carved by his father on the city wall——
"Zhao Shouyi has been guarding the city here for twenty years."
The year after he finished carving this line, his father died in the Talas war, leaving no trace of his body.
One day, an old monk who escaped from Liangzhou told him:
Your father's name is still there, carved on the wall of a broken beacon.
Zhao Ling decided to return eastward.
Travel through 1,400 miles of Tibetan-occupied territory to see that line of writing.
Not for the court.
It's to know what exactly you are guarding.
What he didn't know was that it would be forty years before he left.
