In the winter of the eleventh year of Shaoxing, Yue Fei went to the Dali Temple Prison. Qin Hui's knife hung above his head, and the poisonous wine on New Year's Eve was warming.
Then five things happened at the same time: Qinzong died of illness in Wuguocheng, Wanyan Zongbi tore up the peace treaty and invaded the south, Qin Hui's secret letter to gold was intercepted, Han Shizhong signed a letter with all the generals, and the Huaihe defense line was penetrated with one blow - the Manchu Dynasty was unstoppable.
Late at night on the twenty-sixth day of the first lunar month, Zhao Gou summoned the man he had personally put on death row in Funing Hall. "I decided to believe you once."
Yue Fei was not killed. In the next twenty-one years, he regained the Central Plains, fought a decisive battle at Zhuxian Town, crossed the Yanshan Mountains - the Sixteenth State of Yanyun returned to China, Xixia was annexed, Dali was annexed, and the territory of the Song Dynasty was pushed to the limit that the Han and Tang Dynasties had not reached.
But this is more than a "what if" story. It's the price - corpses lying in every battle won. It is trust - it took Zhao Gou twenty years to truly learn to trust. It is a legacy - heroes will relapse into old wounds, cough up blood, and say "I'm tired" on the sickbed.
From the darkness of the Dali Temple Prison to the sacrifice to heaven at the Yanjing Circle, from the four acupuncture ink characters of "Serve the Country with Loyalty" to the bright incense on Qixia Ridge - the mountains and rivers change from broken to red.
