Seizing the Song

Seizing the Song is a historical time-travel novel by the web author Fushen, serialized on Qidian Chinese and now completed. It runs to about 670,000 Chinese characters in six volumes. The story is set in the late Northern Song, on the eve of the Jingkang Incident: since the Treaty of Chanyuan, the Song court has regarded paying tribute to Liao to buy peace as a humiliation, and the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun have still not been recovered; factional strife churns at court while undercurrents stir among the people. The protagonist's modern identity is a deputy department-level official; after traveling back in time, he becomes An Wengong, the son of the magistrate of Leshou County in Hejian Prefecture, Hebei East Circuit. The story opens as Empress Zheng leaves the capital to visit relatives in Hejian Prefecture and, passing through Xiaofeng Pass, is ambushed by a large band of mountain bandits; the official troops' formation is broken and the situation is critical. Relying on his judgment of the situation and his courage, this official's son offers a plan to protect the imperial party and thereby enters the court's field of view. The plot then unfolds across six volumes (Storm over Hejian, Continued Dreams at Jinhua, Romance at Linhuang, Hebei and Shandong, Governing Jiangnan, Beacon Fires under Heaven): he enters the capital to study at the Imperial College, maneuvers among court dignitaries, gathers the descendants of famous generals such as Han Shizhong, Yang Zaixing and Gao Chong, travels north to Liao, builds up Jiangnan, and step by step grows from a local official's son into a power in his own right, ultimately overthrowing the corrupt Song dynasty and pacifying the surrounding forces of Liao, Jin and Western Xia, implementing new policies and ushering in a golden age. The work interweaves real historical figures with fictional narrative. Characters from Water Margin such as Gongsun Sheng and Gao Qiu appear throughout, and figures such as Li Qingzhao also make appearances; the whole book is built on the refrain 'As a man of the Great Song, I shall restore Yan-Yun,' combining political intrigue, battle scenes and romantic threads.