To forge is to melt down an old vessel and cast a new one.
In 756 AD, the An Lushan Rebellion swept across the land. On the thirteenth day of the sixth month, Emperor Xuanzong fled west in panic, escorted by the imperial guards, with his beloved consort in tow. The next day, the Mawei Station mutiny erupted. Chancellor Yang Guozhong was hacked to pieces, and the six armies refused to advance, turning their weapons on Yang Guifei. Under pressure from the soldiers, a once-great ruler ordered the death of the woman he loved most.
But that is only the version recorded in the history books.
The truth was that, as the army set out, an emperor who had been feeble-minded for half his life stumbled into a dry well in the back courtyard of Mawei Station. When Gao Lishi finally hauled him out at the cost of his life, the emperor was soaked through, but his eyes were terrifyingly clear. The first thing he said upon waking was not, “Where is Yuhuan?” but:
“Tell me, are Feng Changqing and Gao Xianzhi still alive...?”
I must put down the rebellion! But where are my loyal ministers and worthy generals? I must restore the empire! But just how rotten are my realm and its foundations?
This was the heartfelt cry of a soul from nine hundred years in the future. In the face of a hopeless situation, he inherited a Tang Empire rotten to its roots, along with a body burdened by guilt and abandoned by all. Now he had to drag an empire teetering on the edge of the abyss back onto the right path.
Killing Yang Guozhong was the first step. Ordering Yang Yuhuan’s death was the second. Neither was an end, but a beginning. His enemies were not only An Lushan in the north, but also the ghost called “Li Longji”: the man who had once forged the Kaiyuan Golden Age and then personally unleashed the Tianbao catastrophe.
Melt away the sins of the old self, and forge a new vessel for the Tang.
Thus, the title: Forging the Tang.
