Did the collapse of a dynasty begin by chance, or was it inevitable that it was already buried in the monarch's character? Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty wrote the most beautiful poems in thin gold style, but signed a covenant to subjugate the country; Emperor Chongzhen's "diligence" actually accelerated the fall of the empire; Li Yu's pain for his family and country could only be turned into an eternal song... What we see is not only the end of history, but also souls trapped in the throne by obsession.
This book goes deep into the hearts of these last monarchs, analyzing their art, paranoia, or absurd obsessions, and explores how these seemingly personal "hobbies" became the fulcrum that leveraged the fate of the empire, and ultimately led to irreversible tragedy.
