When he was thirteen years old, he stood on the dock of Quanzhou for the first time and saw merchant ships from all over the world gathered together, and eryngium flowers blooming like fire in the sky.
He vowed: I will make this port bigger.
Twenty years later, he did it. The warehouses were full of spices, the fleets covered the sea, the Tibetan merchants respected him as their master, and the imperial court made him an official. He single-handedly pushed Quanzhou to the top of the world and became the true master of the largest port in the East.
But when the last fleet of the Southern Song Dynasty drifted to the city and one hundred thousand soldiers and civilians begged to enter the city, he chose to close the door.
Overnight, he went from hero to traitor. The Yuan Dynasty used him and then abandoned him; the Ming Dynasty dug up his tomb and nailed him to a pillar of shame; only the word "rebel" was left in the history books.
Why was a man who created the world's largest port completely deleted from history?
He saved a city, but lost his own name.
Open this book, walk into Citong Port at the turn of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and witness how the great deeds built by one person throughout his life were erased by generations of descendants. This is not only his tragedy, but also the collective amnesia of China's maritime civilization from openness to introversion.
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Tags: Historical Fiction | Song and Yuan Dynasties | Maritime Silk Road | Forgotten Heroes
