On the day of the wedding, the red silk from Zhenbei Hou Mansion had not been withdrawn, and the imperial troops had surrounded the gate of the house.
What Shen Zhaowei was waiting for was not the prince's wedding, but an edict for colluding with the enemy. His father and brother died in the border battle, and the Shen family was full of loyal people, but they were labeled as traitors by their motherland before their bodies were still cold. The prince handed her a confession from across the door and advised her to "take into account the overall situation"; the emperor issued an imperial edict and sent her to the enemy country to make peace, sealing the border and defeat for the Southern Dynasty.
She left Beijing in her wedding dress and entered Beiyin with a crime on her back. Everyone thought she was an abandoned chess piece. The enemy's court was waiting to see her bow her head, and the dignitaries of her homeland were waiting for her to die in a foreign land.
But Shen Zhaowei refused to accept his fate.
She borrowed a sword from the enemy country, set up traps in the court, and sought evidence at the border. Step by step, she transformed from a married woman and abandoned son into a chess player that neither country dared to look down upon. Three years later, she returned with her old troops and irrefutable evidence, not to ask the prince to turn back, but to let the whole court hear the question: who sold the border back then, and who used the corpses of loyal ministers to replace her own power.
Mountains and rivers should not just let loyal ministers die, and women should not bow to the so-called overall situation.
Very good article.