A New Song Dynasty: Beginning with the Jingkang Incident

In the first year of Jingkang, the Jin armies invaded south.

The two emperors were captured, the realm fell, and princesses and princes were treated as no better than blades of grass.

The prosperous scenes of Along the River During the Qingming Festival were burned to ash in raging flames...

The flourishing splendor of the old Record of Dreams in the Eastern Capital was now nothing but a memory...

Bandits rose everywhere, and the land teemed with roving rebels. Powerful families seized the people’s land, and the common folk took up arms in revolt. The nobility reveled in luxury, the capitulationists grovelled, and treacherous ministers persecuted the loyal...

The northern lands lay desolate and barren, strewn with the dead from starvation.

The Jin army’s warhorses galloped unchecked across the Central Plains, while the Wanyan imperial clan congratulated itself and installed a puppet emperor...

Beset by troubles within and without, the great edifice was on the brink of collapse.

On the journey north, Zhao Zhen, the emperor’s eighteenth son, was entrusted with a mission in the hour of crisis. He would seize every moment and swore to arm the Great Song with swords and establish a glorious new Song...