A long historical novel set during the Xining period of the Northern Song Dynasty. The protagonist of the story, Shen Yan, was born in a poor family in the south of the Yangtze River. Since childhood, he has witnessed the pros and cons of the new law at the grassroots level and the suffering of people's livelihood. With his extraordinary talent and perseverance, he studied hard at Huzhou Anding Academy, jumped out of the sectarian views of the old and new party struggles, and formed his own pragmatic, practical and practical academic philosophy.
With delicate writing, the novel completely restores the academy ecology, the entire process of the three-level imperial examination system and the complex bureaucratic system of the Song Dynasty. Through Shen Yan's legendary life from a poor scholar, to being named on the gold medal list, to being an official at the grassroots level, playing games in the central government, and finally becoming the prime minister, it shows how he stuck to his true heart, governed the country pragmatically, and tried to turn the tide in the late Northern Song Dynasty when party strife was fierce, internal and external troubles were occurring.
This book is not only a history of the male protagonist's career struggle, but also a vivid social portrait of the Northern Song Dynasty. It deeply depicts the images of scholar-bureaucrats from different classes and political opinions, dialectically explores the historical merits and demerits of Wang Anshi's reform, and the underlying reasons for the decline of the Northern Song Dynasty, leading readers to understand a real and complex Song Dynasty in an all-round and multi-angle manner.
