Inside Guangzheng Hall, Li Yu tilted his head back and stared blankly at nothing.
It was the first time he had heard people of later generations mention his name, and in such a manner.
He had once imagined that when this day came, he would feel some long delayed satisfaction, the kind that comes from seeing old grievances avenged at last. Yet as he watched the scene unfold upon the light screen, the ragged defender on the walls of Xiangyang weeping before offering surrender, the ranks of a hundred thousand soldiers standing in confusion as their comrades at the front suddenly turned their spears and the formation collapsed backward in waves, his heart felt only hollow.
The fall of the Southern Song had also begun with the loss of the Yangtze's natural defenses, a fate eerily similar to that of Southern Tang in Jiangnan.
And yet the manner of its destruction was completely different.
When Cao Bin once sailed northward, Li Yu had seen countless small boats racing southward in competition, sails full, merchants eager for trade and profit. Under the Mongols' campaign of annihilation, such scenes would likely never be seen again.
The phrase "the destruction of a state and the extinction of a people" had once been nothing more than poetic flourish in his own compositions. Now, for the first time, it was displayed before his eyes with terrifying clarity through means that felt almost divine.
"History is always similar," Zhao Kuangyin sighed.
The younger generation had said that sentence far too many times, but seeing the fall of Song laid out so vividly before him felt entirely different.
Especially when one considered that this was the second fall of Song.
The Northern Song had fallen to the Jurchens, who drove straight in, captured the capital, seized two emperors, and left behind the humiliation of Jingkang.
The Southern Song had fallen to the Mongols, who advanced step by step, breaking iron passes and devouring territory inch by inch until even immortals would have been powerless to reverse the tide.
Two different methods, two total collapses. Zhao Kuangyin found himself unsure what expression he ought to wear.
Zhao Guangyi lifted his prayer beads once more, lowered his gaze, and began silently recalling passages of Buddhist scripture.
The atmosphere in Guangzheng Hall grew heavy. In the long silence, Zhao Pu suddenly asked a question.
"What of Wen Tianxiang, the one who wrote the Song of Righteousness?"
---
[Lightscreen]
[ Dingjiazhou lies in what is today Tongling in Anhui. A glance at the map makes it clear that it stands only about two hundred kilometers in a straight line from Lin'an, the place immortalized in the line "When will the singing and dancing at West Lake ever cease." The destruction of the Southern Song was already a matter of days.
And in the end, the one who managed to salvage even a shred of military honor for the Southern Song was ironically one of those whom the court had long despised, a "surrendered northerner."
Zhuozhou, hometown of Liu Bei and Zhang Fei, the finishing line of the famous Gaoliang River disaster. Throughout the two Song dynasties, it had only briefly been recovered during the reigns of Zhao Guangyi and Emperor Huizong, and both times for a very short period.
In the late Southern Song, a man named Zhang Shijie from Zhuozhou, considered lowest in status under Mongol Yuan rule because of his background, once guarded the estate of a Mongol official in Henan. After committing an offense, he fled south and entered Southern Song service, eventually rising to become one of its generals.
On the third day of the first month in 1276, while Empress Dowager Xie and the six year old Emperor Gong of Song had scarcely begun their New Year meal in Lin'an, news arrived that the defender of Jiaxing Prefecture had opened the city gates and surrendered.
At that moment, only a handful of figures in the Southern Song still dared to stand forward and speak. The chancellor Chen Yizhong, the Baokang military commissioner Zhang Shijie, the vice minister of rites Lu Xiufu, and the prefect of Lin'an Wen Tianxiang were essentially the final assets of the dynasty.
When a state is about to perish, each person's fate follows its own path.
First came Chen Yizhong, later mockingly called the king of broken promises. Once promoted by Jia Sidao and attached to his faction, he rose to the position of chancellor through opposition to his former patron. Now, with Yuan forces at the city's gates and Left Chancellor Liu Mengyan already fleeing, Chen Yizhong and Empress Dowager Xie attempted to negotiate peace. Rebuffed, Chen urged relocation of the capital.
Even on the brink of ruin, moving the capital was a grave matter. After much persuasion, the empress dowager finally agreed. Yet when the appointed day arrived, Chen Yizhong simply failed to appear, effectively abandoning the empress. Furious, she exclaimed that she had never wished to relocate in the first place and accused him of deceiving her. The plan collapsed, and they all remained in Lin'an awaiting fate.
Soon Yuan troops occupied the northern suburbs of the city. The empress dowager again sought surrender. The Mongol commander Bayan agreed in principle but demanded that the chancellor come in person. When the appointed date arrived, Chen once more reneged and fled to the countryside. Forced to act, the empress instead dispatched Wen Tianxiang and others as envoys. Their sharp words angered Bayan, negotiations broke down, and within two months Lin'an fell. Thousands of imperial clan members were taken north. At this point, the Southern Song had effectively ceased to exist.
Yet a trace of Zhao bloodline remained. Officials who still resisted organized a maritime government in exile. Chen Yizhong was again invited to serve as chancellor, but disagreements with Zhang Shijie during the flight led him to depart for Champa, from which he never returned despite repeated summons. Zhang Shijie continued onward toward Yashan.
Alongside Chen stood Zhang Shijie, Lu Xiufu, and Wen Tianxiang, later called the Three Heroes of the Late Song. Yet even among them there was no perfect unity.
Before the final collapse, Lu Xiufu had been a scholar official. As the exile court dwindled, the steadfast Lu assumed increasing responsibilities. By the time the court reached Yashan, military finances and labor were largely under his control alone.
At the Battle of Yashan, seeing that matters were beyond recovery, Zhang Shijie proposed transferring the young Prince of Wei, regarded as the Song ruler, to his ship in order to attempt a breakout. Lu Xiufu refused, fearing betrayal. When Yashan fell and officials fled in all directions, Lu, seeing no path of survival, pushed his wife and children into the sea and then carried the prince upon his back into the waters, dying with him.
Zhang Shijie's career was distinctly Song in character. He faced both the ferocity of the Yuan armies and the sharp betrayals of his own allies.
After the Battle of Dingjiazhou, only Zhang briefly recaptured several cities, only to lose them again. It changed nothing.
At the more critical Battle of Jiaoshan, four coordinated advances had been planned, yet both Chancellor Liu Mengyan and Chen Yizhong held back their forces. Zhang was defeated, the Yangtze became an internal river of the Yuan, and any hope of recovery vanished.
Zhang's own military ability was at best mediocre. His decision to hold at Yashan left Song forces trapped without access to fresh water and led to total defeat, a choice that carried faint echoes of Zhuge Liang's overconfident disciples.
He later defended himself, arguing that his subordinates were already inclined toward dispersal and that only a shared resolve to die together could prevent even swifter collapse.
In truth, no decision would have mattered. When Kublai Khan resolved to devote the strength of an entire continent to destroying a single state, the outcome was set. Once Xiangyang was lost, nothing the Southern Song attempted thereafter could reverse the tide. Yashan was simply the final wager chosen by Zhang Shijie, unwilling to drift endlessly upon the sea.
We all know the outcome at Yashan. After Lu Xiufu entered the sea, countless others followed. For seven days, more than a hundred thousand bodies floated upon the waves.
Zhang Shijie, who escaped the immediate disaster, heard the news and, seeing a typhoon approaching in the distance, refused his men's pleas to go ashore. He left only the words, "If it has come to this, is it Heaven's will?" Soon after, a hurricane wrecked his vessel beneath Mount Pingzhang, and he drowned.
The fall of Lin'an marked the destruction of the Southern Song regime. After Yashan, the final breath of the Song dynasty dissipated. The Song had endured for three hundred and nineteen years.
Among the dynasties from Qin onward, its mandate lasted second only to the Han. ]