Synopsis of The Moon over Suiyang
The second year of the Zhide era of the Great Tang, Suiyang.
Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan defended the isolated city together. With fewer than seven thousand exhausted soldiers, they resisted the 130,000 rebel troops of Yin Ziqi. The city was besieged for ten months. With food gone, they snared sparrows and dug up rats, and even exchanged children to eat. On the day the city fell, Zhang Xun and more than thirty officers were killed. Only Xu Yuan was taken to Luoyang.
As he faced execution, Zhang Xun looked up at the sky and sighed, "I regret that I could not fathom Xu Yuan's heart, and that I misled the nation. If the dead can know what happens in this world, I will not forgive him even in the underworld."
Those words were like an iron nail, driven into history, and into the heart of an eight-year-old boy.
His name was Zhang Quji. He was Zhang Xun's son.
Nineteen years later, in the autumn of the ninth year of the Dali era, Zhang Quji knelt in the great hall of the Shangshu Department and petitioned the court to strip Xu Yuan of his official rank and titles posthumously. He was convinced Xu Yuan had betrayed them and surrendered to the enemy, and that Xu Yuan had caused his father's death. He had spent his entire youth preparing for this day.
The court deliberation rejected his petition. The officials said the evidence was insufficient.
Quji refused to accept it. He embarked on a long journey to seek proof. From Liangzhou to Songzhou, and from Songzhou to Suiyang, he sought out every survivor of the Battle of Suiyang. A veteran with severed limbs, a minor Luoyang clerk who had escorted Xu Yuan, half a page of a tattered manuscript found in a ruined temple, notes from one of Yin Ziqi's advisers...
He thought he was gathering evidence of Xu Yuan's guilt.
He did not know that, with every step, he was drawing closer to another truth.
Meanwhile, Xu Yuan's son, Xu Xian, silently bore the world's condemnation. He had never spoken a word in his father's defense. It was not that he did not want to. He knew no one would believe him.
Until, during the Yuanhe era, a man named Han Yu appeared.
He read Li Han's Biography of Zhang Xun and discovered that the account of Xu Yuan's deeds had been...
The iron nail of history has nailed the loyal martyr, and also nailed the boy's nineteen-year obsession. Under the moonlight of Suiyang, there is never a real winner, only two sons who are burdened with infamy and obsession, and the belated justice written by Han Yu. The writing is restrained and sharp, making your heart heavy when you read it.
The author has a profound historical background and uses Zhang Quji as the father's witness as a clue. The plot is layered and exciting. With the efforts of the protagonist and Han Yu, the truth is finally revealed.