In the thirty-first year of Hongwu, in the Forbidden City of Nanjing, Emperor Taizu of Ming, Zhu Yuanzhang, drew his last breath.
As death approached, he gazed at the map of the north, his heart fixed on one thing: the northern campaign was unfinished, and the northern invaders had not been driven out.
When he opened his eyes again, he had become Emperor Gaozong of Song, Zhao Gou, who after the Jingkang Humiliation had fled across the sea to escape the Jin armies, bent on making peace and clinging to a precarious existence.
The entire court knelt and begged for peace. The Yangtze defense line was on the brink of collapse, half the empire had fallen to the northern invaders, and Yue Fei, the loyal hero of the ages, had just been dismissed from office for submitting a memorial advocating war. His tragic death at Fengbo Pavilion was soon to follow.
The Hongwu Emperor slammed the table and sprang to his feet, fury blazing in his eyes.
“I went from a beggar in Haozhou to the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming. How could a few northern invaders frighten me? How could I let the loyal be wronged and our lands fall into ruin?”
From that moment on, the Southern Song changed.
He cast off Zhao Gou’s cowardice and clinging to survival, and used Hongwu’s iron-fisted rule to put the court in order. He had Qin Hui and his treacherous faction executed by slow slicing, and dismissed the inept officials who sought peace, cleansing the court.
With the discernment of a founding emperor, he appointed Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, Liu Qi, and other legendary generals, forging a battle-hardened Song army. At last, the banners of the Yue Family Army could fly across the Central Plains.
He personally directed the campaign and led the troops north. At Yancheng, they shattered the Iron Pagoda Army; they reclaimed the old capital, Kaifeng; then they took Yanjing and destroyed the Jin. At last, they avenged the century-old national humiliation of Jingkang!
He was the decisive Hongwu Emperor, and a sovereign who knew the art of power.
He understood Yue Fei’s loyalty and courage, yet kept an emperor’s instinct for maintaining balance. He would reclaim ten thousand miles of territory, but he would also ensure peace and prosperity for the Song.
As the hoofbeats of the Mongol cavalry began to thunder across the grasslands, he would draw on the spirit of the founding emperor of the Great Ming and build the Song an impregnable Great Wall of steel.
