The night was as clear and fluid as water, studded with myriad stars, and a crescent moon hung in the sky like a silver hook… It was, by all accounts, an ideal night for raising a cup beneath the moon, composing verse, or weaving lyrics into timeless melodies.
Yet Zhao Ji, Emperor Huizong of Song—renowned for his prodigious talent, his mastery of music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, and the creator of the "Slender Gold" script—lay listlessly reclined upon his couch, gazing feebly at the crystalline night sky. Despair weighed heavily upon him, extinguishing any flicker of poetic inspiration.
Though he bore the nominal title of Retired Emperor, in truth he had become a prisoner to his son, Zhao Huan. Confined within the Dragon Virtue Palace, he could no longer glimpse the vibrant world beyond its walls, relying only on scattered whispers from servants and guards to learn of the kingdom's ever-shifting tides.
The ministers he had once trusted—Cai Jing, Wang Fu, Tong Guan, Liang Shicheng, Zhu Mian, Li Yan—reviled by the furious gentry and common folk alike as the "Six Traitors," were now dead by imperial decree or banished to distant and desolate regions, where they perished mysteriously en route.
The Genyue, a fantastical imperial garden constructed at great expense, had been ravaged. Its once-exquisite flora and exotic beasts, procured from across the realm, were now slaughtered for military rations. The prized stones and flora transported from Jiangnan—once the pride of the famed "Floral Tribute"—were now used as ammunition for catapults, reducing the entire endeavor to a tragic farce.
But in the end, was not this ruin of his own making?
This emperor—devoted to Taoism and known as the "Daoist Sovereign"—reigned for over two decades, accomplishing little for the nation's prosperity or the people's welfare, but excelling instead in indulgence and extravagance, surpassing even the most decadent monarchs of dynasties past.
If it had merely been personal excess, it might have been tolerable; the Song's wealth could sustain such waste for a time. But the emperor was not content with idle luxury. Like the ill-fated Sui Yangdi, he hungered for grandeur and conquest. Seeing Liao's weakness, he dispatched the eunuch Tong Guan with elite troops, attempting to ally with the Jurchen Jin to crush Liao—a reckless gambit, undertaken while rebellion brewed in the southeast under Fang La and banditry rose in the northeast (among them, the future legends of Liangshan). The empire was already unstable, yet he chose this moment to provoke war in the north. How was this different from Sui Yangdi's doomed expedition to Goguryeo?
The campaign might have been forgivable had it succeeded—had it reclaimed the lost Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures. But the imperial court's blundering commands led to two crushing defeats at the hands of fragmented Khitan remnants. The world laughed at the spectacle of tens of thousands of elite troops routed by scattered, disheartened enemies. In the end, the court had to humiliate itself by purchasing the city of Yanjing from the Jurchens.
Even in the face of such disgrace, the emperor, with his artistic temperament and fanciful spirit, declared a grand celebration. The southern sacrificial rites alone, to commemorate this "recovery" of Yanjing, cost over ten million strings of cash. Sybaritic ministers flattered him into pursuing a ceremonial pilgrimage to Mount Tai. And all this opulence, along with the enormous annual tribute to the Jin, was exacted from the pockets of the Song people.
Thus, as the Shoushan and Genyue towers behind the Yanfu Palace rose ever higher, the people calculated the day this monstrous garden—built from their flesh and blood—would finally collapse. The emperor, tired of palace grandeur, grew enamored with pastoral scenes of the south. He filled Genyue with a menagerie of wild beasts. At all hours, the cries of birds and howls of foxes echoed ominously over the capital. Citizens—nobles and commoners alike—saw this as a portent of doom.
It proved prophetic.
Barely two years after Genyue's completion, the greedy and brutal Jin broke their ink-wet treaty and invaded. The Song's sheltering of Liao fugitives offered them a pretext, but all knew the truth: no excuse was needed for wolves to lust after a weakened and fertile prey.
The decaying fortresses of Hebei failed to repel the invaders. Treachery abounded in Hedong, and province after province fell like dominoes. The mighty Yellow River, once a natural defense, proved futile. Court eunuch Liang Fangping, tasked with guarding its bridges, fled at first sight of the enemy—leaving the pontoons intact for the Jin to cross and press toward the capital.
Faced with imminent doom, Emperor Huizong panicked and abdicated to his son, fleeing south with his favored ministers. His decision was baffling—he, who had ruled for over twenty years, now fled when Bianjing still stood, abandoning crown and people. His cowardice forever tarnished his name.
He may have escaped, but left the new emperor, Zhao Huan, with an irredeemable mess.
Worse still, after fleeing, Huizong clung to dreams of reclaiming power. In the south, he began embezzling taxes meant for the capital to fund a shadow court of his own. The Song treasury, already strained by war, was desperate for funds from Jiangnan. But Huizong's interference cut off these lifelines at the most critical hour. Watching his father sabotage the war effort, Emperor Qinzong nearly boiled with rage.
During the first siege of Bianjing, Qinzong, inept as he was, understood the axiom: an army marches on its stomach. With supplies, the capital could endure and harass the enemy. Yet Huizong severed the supply chain, likely plotting a return to the throne. Panicked, Qinzong capitulated—offering bribes and agreeing to humiliating terms to make the Jin withdraw.
Even the counteroffensive had to march underfed and underpaid, collapsing into disarray. By the time southern grain transport resumed, the northern front had long since fallen.
Had Huizong stayed in the south, he might have avoided the humiliation of the Jingkang Disaster. But after the siege lifted, he brazenly returned to Bianjing.
Why return, after fleeing in disgrace?
To vie once more for fame and power.
For no man seeking glory could remain absent from the Central Plains, the very heart of the realm. To dwell in the south was to fade into obscurity. Who would remember the Retired Emperor, languishing far from the stage of history?
Back in Bianjing, he sought to wrest power from his son. But the world had moved on—no one revered the coward who had fled. His name was met with scorn, his ambitions laughed at.
Proposing to go to Jingzhao to train the western armies, Huizong was rebuffed. Qinzong saw through the ruse: a bid to seize military command and launch a coup.
Thus, the pretense of filial affection crumbled. Qinzong stripped his father of attendants and confined him in the Dragon Virtue Palace. Before his return, Huizong was still honored. Afterward, he was isolated, stripped of allies and comforts, and left in a cold palace with nothing familiar to cling to.
Only then did Zhao Ji finally grasp the bitter anguish once felt by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, forced to abdicate amid the chaos of An Lushan's rebellion.
But Huizong's fate was even crueler.
Shortly after his confinement, the Jin returned to lay siege once more.
This time, there would be no escape.
As panic spread among the palace staff, Huizong alone remained composed—or perhaps indifferent.
From the moment he was imprisoned, the fate of the Song no longer concerned him.
Whether the court repelled the invaders or not, he would remain a prisoner. Only in the event of a Jin victory did he see a slim hope of release—perhaps even being reinstated as a puppet ruler of the Jin in the Central Plains. Yet he doubted the Jin possessed such political foresight—and truthfully, he hoped it would never come to that. Despite everything, the emperor on the throne was still his son. The Song was still the legacy of his forebears.
Even resentful of Qinzong's coldness, Huizong could not bear to see the fall of his dynasty.
The days grew darker. The imperial troops suffered defeat after defeat. The Jin's siege engines pounded the capital ceaselessly, filling the city with dread. Loyalist armies from the provinces were either misled by forged edicts from traitorous peace factions or shattered in hopeless battle. As the court descended into infighting, the capital teetered on the edge of ruin.
In those dire days, Huizong was guarded even more tightly. News from the outside world ceased. The sudden, unseasonal heat overwhelmed him. He fell ill from sunstroke, drifting in and out of consciousness.
When he recovered, a string of astonishing reports reached his ears—news so fantastical he was nearly struck dumb:
—A force of over a hundred thousand Jin invaders had been annihilated overnight. Bianjing had been miraculously saved.
—A true immortal had descended to the mortal realm, wielding divine power.
—And the emperor himself, aided by this Daoist immortal, had suddenly achieved enlightenment—now possessing supernatural strength, able to lift mountains and fly upon clouds!
Even in the face of battle, Huizong had remained calm. But this—this was intolerable!
"Outrageous! Utterly outrageous! I, who have worshipped the Dao with unwavering devotion my entire life, who have been the most pious of emperors, never received the favor of the heavens. And now my unfilial son has ascended to immortality? Heaven has no eyes! Summon him at once! I must see my now-immortal son! How could he not share such divine fortune with his own father? Such ingratitude!"
And so, the next day, after court had adjourned, Guo Jing, the so-called "Protector of the Nation," arrived with a curious construction request.
"…A celestial residence for the emperor?" Wang Qiu blinked in disbelief. "In the middle of wartime chaos?!"
"…Indeed," Guo Jing replied with a wry smile. "Now that His Majesty has become a transcendent being—or more precisely, a kind of superhuman—he feels that earthly palaces no longer suit him. He wishes for a divine abode drawn from legend. And not just one. The order calls for two. The self-styled Daoist Sovereign, our Retired Emperor, also dreams of dwelling in a celestial paradise while he yet draws breath…"