The Imperial Banquet is the first book in the "new historical novel" series by web novelist Mo Wu, subtitled "Killing Intent at Every Step," published by Huangshan Publishing House in 2012. The story is set against the political struggle among three generations of emperors—Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Di, and Zhu Yunwen—from the Hongwu to the Yongle era in the early Ming dynasty: after the Jingnan Campaign, the fate of the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen became a mystery, and the Yongle Emperor Zhu Di ascended the throne and changed the era name to Yongle. In the final years of Yongle, the seemingly prosperous Ming dynasty was in fact seething beneath the surface. The prophetic books "Song of Sun and Moon" and "Golden Dragon Formula" appeared, dragging forth earth-shaking auguries; Japanese ninja, the mysterious organization the Fire-Worshiping Society, the Pai sect, and other forces emerged one after another, alarming court and country. Qiu Changfeng, a chiliarch of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, is ordered by the "Black-Robed Chancellor" Yao Guangxiao to investigate the mystery of the Song of Sun and Moon. Peeling back layer after layer through dense fog and surviving several dangers, he gradually approaches the edge of the truth—only to find that the truth is so terrible no one dares touch it. The book fuses real historical events with wuxia, fantasy, and suspense elements, unfolding court intrigue and martial-world grudges through interwoven multi-threaded suspense. It has been praised as one of the representative works that pioneered a new approach to historical wuxia, and is the opening of the Imperial Banquet trilogy.
Huangshan Publishing House is a specialized publisher whose main responsibility and core business is the collation and publication of ancient texts, while also covering popular works on literature and history. Its publishing scope spans the collation of classical works, original academic research, and the popularization of traditional culture, and it has issued compilation and scholarly projects such as the Anhui Library, The Complete Works of Fang Yizhi, and The Complete Works of Mei Wending. As for the titles recorded in our database, only one is currently included: Crown Yoga: From Physical and Mental Health to Life Awakening, by Pan Lin, commonly classified under health, which indicates that the publisher also extends into readings on traditional culture and physical and mental cultivation. Owing to the limits of the available data, public information on its author resources, specific series planning, and publishing characteristics is limited, making a more detailed description difficult at present.
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