Sword Song of the Great Tang

Sword Song of the Great Tang is a historical wuxia novel by the author Chong Buliao, serialized since 2017 on 17K Novel Network, QQ Reading, and other platforms. It runs about 793,900 Chinese characters across four volumes and 192 chapters, plus an epilogue. The story is set in the late Wu Zhou period. Lin Jianlan, an ordinary village youth, is drawn into the feuds and grudges of the jianghu factions after he rescues the leader of the Kuangyi Gang; behind the surging waves of jianghu intrigue lies an even deeper undercurrent. The truth about his parents' early deaths turns out to be more complicated than it seemed, and in the course of investigating, he steps ever deeper into the tangled politics of the court. The book opens with the line "Sword drawn into the jianghu, waves rise in the Tang palace," advancing along two threads—jianghu and court. On one side is a court where the imperial star is about to fall and factions scheme openly and covertly; on the other, jianghu wonders such as the lost pearl of the sand city and intricate machinations. The work uses a traditional chapter structure, moving through Volumes One to Four; in the final volume (the grand finale), every chapter title borrows the name of a ci tune pattern, such as "The General's Command," "Bells in the Rain," "Breaking the Battle Formation," "Joy at Meeting," and "Return of the Colored Clouds," giving it a markedly classical form. The writing is at once a lament that "even one who looks down on the world cannot escape the dust of the years" and a scrutiny of greed and attachment within the vortex of power, closing with the lingering mood of "plucking the sword on the sandbar, all splendor faded, looking back where the rivers and mountains meet the sunset, snow falling silent on the shoulders."