112: Mysteries at the End of the Song Dynasty

"Feng Zi? Feng Zi! Wake the hell up!"

Wang Dalong's roar exploded, and as Lin Feng's shoulders were shaken violently, the gray-white world before his eyes shattered instantly.

He was back.

But his face was as pale as paper, and cold sweat streamed down his forehead.

"Get off me!"

Lin Feng shoved Wang Dalong aside, stumbled through the crowd, and with a "thud," knelt before that cold stone tablet.

The crowd gasped in surprise.

His fingertips trembled violently as he gently brushed over those two deeply engraved names with a mix of pilgrimage-like devotion and fear.

Zhao Shi.

Zhao Bing.

Boom—!

Blood-drenched images exploded in his mind.

That wasn't history; it was a past filled with warmth and wailing!

In 1276 AD, Lin'an fell, and the Southern Song Dynasty court collapsed!

The Emperor's uncle Yang Liangjie, Chancellor Lu Xiufu, and General Zhang Shijie protected two children—the eight-year-old Prince of Yi, Zhao Shi, and the four-year-old Prince of Wei, Zhao Bing—as they fled in panic!

Behind them was the endless pursuit of the Mongol Yuan iron cavalry!

Beneath them were the ten thousand miles of raging waves along the southeast coast!

They fought bloody battles all the way south!

They ascended the throne in Fuzhou; an eight-year-old child took up this heavy burden amidst the precarious situation!

They were betrayed in Quanzhou, where the port of hope slammed its doors of despair shut on them!

In the seas of Guangdong, one emperor died of illness!

Finally, at Yamen.

That lonely stretch of sea.

The most tragic and heroic scene in Chinese history unfolded.

Chancellor Lu Xiufu, that frail scholar, carried the eight-year-old little Emperor Zhao Bing on his back and walked toward the ship's rail at the final moment.

He knelt and kowtowed to the sea.

"Your Majesty, national affairs have come to this; Your Majesty should die for the country. The Deyou Emperor was humiliated enough; Your Majesty must not be humiliated further!"

Then, he leaped into the rolling, angry waves!

Immediately after, the hundred thousand soldiers and civilians who followed them jumped down without hesitation!

They would rather die for their country than live as slaves of a fallen nation!

After Yamen, there is no more Huaxia!

This was not some empty lamentation!

This was the most fierce and resolute bloodlust a nation could burst forth with when facing a dead end!

"It's... it's the two emperors of the late Song!"

A roar came out; Old Bai, an old man who had studied history his whole life, was now trembling with excitement, old tears streaming down his face, his voice changing pitch.

"Aren't their mausoleums in Chiwan, Guangdong? How is it possible... how is it possible to find a stone tablet engraved with their names in Quanzhou?!"

"This is impossible! This is absolutely impossible!"

Boom!

The atmosphere on the scene instantly froze.

No one was a fool; seeing Old Bai and Lin Feng like this, they knew they had dug up something monumental!

"Seal it off! Quick! Set up the police line!"

The project manager's cold sweat broke out instantly as he shouted at the security guards, "Seal off the entire construction site! Not even a fly is allowed to fly out!"

He tremblingly pulled out his phone, his hands shaking so much he had to dial the number several times.

"Hello? Is this the city government? Something big has happened! At Master Lin's construction site, we dug up..."

He no longer knew how to describe it.

Anything that involved the name 'Lin Feng' was never a small matter.

The news was reported up through the levels at an unimaginable speed.

Quanzhou Municipal Government, the province, and even the capital... countless phones were ringing off the hook within a short hour.

In less than two hours.

"Vroom, vroom—"

The roar of a massive engine tore through the clouds.

A dark green military helicopter, carrying a powerful aura, landed directly on the open space next to the construction site.

The cabin door opened.

A valiant figure jumped down.

Jiang Wanqing was dressed in capable field archaeology work clothes, her long hair tied in a ponytail, followed by a team of fully armed archaeological team members.

She saw the deep pit and the stone tablet at a glance, and then saw Lin Feng standing to the side with a heavy expression.

Her eyes were filled with complexity and a sort of "as expected" helplessness.

"I only received the report this morning that your new home finally started construction."

She walked quickly to Lin Feng, her tone carrying a hint of fatigue.

"I was even joking with my colleagues then, saying that you, the 'Koi of the archaeological world,' could finally stay quiet for a few days."

She pointed her finger toward the stone tablet from a distance, her lips pulling into a smile that looked worse than crying.

"And the result?"

"Is this even building a house? On the very first day of work, you dug up a national-level cold case for me!"

"Lin Feng, did I owe you something in my past life?"

The construction site was quickly taken over by the archaeological team.

Inside the temporary command tent.

Lin Feng, Wang Dalong, and Jiang Wanqing looked at the rubbing of the stone tablet on the screen, the atmosphere oppressively heavy.

"So, what the hell is going on?"

Wang Dalong finally couldn't hold it in anymore; he slammed his fist on the table and roared, "Didn't those two little emperors both die over in Guangdong? Their bodies were found, and their tombs were built! What's with this tablet? Is it haunted?"

"That is the key to the problem."

Jiang Wanqing's expression was serious to the extreme as she swiped her tablet and pulled up an ancient map of the Southern Song Dynasty.

"Quanzhou was the most important and most painful stop on the southern journey of the exiled Southern Song court."

She pointed to "Zaiton Port" on the map and explained.

"The one controlling Quanzhou Port at the time was a wealthy Arab merchant named Pu Shougeng. He held heavy troops and was as rich as a country. When the Song royalty fled south, they pinned all their hopes on him."

"And then?" Wang Dalong pressed.

"And then," Jiang Wanqing's voice turned cold, "he chose to surrender to the Mongol Yuan."

"Not only did he not open the port to welcome the Song royalty, but he also raised his sword within the city, slaughtering over three thousand members of the Song imperial clan in Quanzhou! He used the heads of these imperial relatives as a tribute to his new master!"

"Dammit! That son of a bitch traitor!" Wang Dalong was so angry his eyes were bloodshot.

"So," Jiang Wanqing continued, "the exiled court of Zhao Shi and Zhao Bing couldn't even enter Quanzhou. They were outside the city, watching as the world's largest port at the time closed its gates to them, listening to the screams of their compatriots inside, and fled in panic."

Inside the tent, there was a deathly silence.

Lin Feng, who had been silent all along, finally spoke.

His voice was very low and raspy.

"So, this tablet is not a gravestone."

He slowly raised his head and turned to Jiang Wanqing, a heart-palpitating light in his bloodshot eyes.

"It's a marker."

"Or rather..."

"A curse!"

Jiang Wanqing's body trembled slightly.

Lin Feng ignored her shock and stared fixedly at the ancient map, asking word by word:

"The legends about the Southern Song treasure... the fleet that mysteriously disappeared before the final battle at Yamen, loaded with the entire national treasury of the Southern Song... are they really just legends?"

As the words fell, the air in the tent seemed to be sucked dry!

Jiang Wanqing looked at him, her eyes flashing with a mix of horror and excitement, and even a feeling of having found a kindred spirit!

She knew that Lin Feng had once again accurately touched the most core and secret pulse of that buried history!

"No."

She shook her head vigorously, almost spitting out those words through gritted teeth.

"They are not legends."

She quickly switched the map on her tablet, and a nautical chart covered in strange markings appeared on the screen.

"That is the greatest unsolved mystery in the history of the Southern Song! Within our circles, it has a code name—the 'Royal Song Treasure Ships'!"

"Rumor has it that before the final battle at Yamen, General Zhang Shijie already sensed the situation was lost. To leave a glimmer of hope for the restoration of the Han lineage, he secretly dispatched a trusted fleet, loading all the gold, silver, treasures, and precious classics of the Southern Song treasury onto ships to hide them, planning for a future comeback!"

"But this fleet, after leaving Yamen, vanished like it had evaporated from the face of the earth, never appearing in history again."

Jiang Wanqing's finger tapped heavily on a sea area marked with countless red circles on the map!

"For hundreds of years, countless people have used countless resources to find this treasure that could rival a nation's wealth."

Her voice carried a fateful tremble.

"And all the clues, in the end, point to the same place!"