So at the beginning Jin Yong is really just giving a ton of historical context through a narrative kinda format before the story really begins, and I never even got past that. So if you want... here's some historical context about the Song dynasty.
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Chapter One: Surprising Events in the Blizzard
The howling waters of the Qiantang river spun ceaselessly and tirelessly day and night around Niu Family Village, near Lin'an in the western part of the Liangzhe Circuit, then eastward to the sea. On the banks of the river stood a dozen tallow trees with leaves crimson as though lit on fire. It was August. The wild grass that grew around the village had just begun to turn yellow. With a dab of light from the setting sun, it appeared even more desolate. Under two tall oak trees were a group of villagers, men, women, and a dozen children, who were listening attentively to the words of a skinny old man.The orator was about fifty years old, with a long gown whose original green color had long washed out into a bluish-gray shade with hints of white. His two wooden sheets made from of pear trees knocked together, and the bamboo stick in his left hand began to bang on a Jie drum, making repeated sounds. He sang:
The peach has no master, it simply bloomed; crows roam grass fields left ungroomed.
So many ruins surround the ancient well; here all along people have dwelled.
The orator hit the wooden sheets again, and said: "This heptasyllabic poem tells how, after the battle flames had gone out, those houses and homes that had once stood had turned into an obliviated land populated by broken walls and leftover tiles. The four-member family of the Old Man Ye to which this humble storyteller had previously referred experienced various joys and sorrows. They reunited only to be separated, and scattered only to return together again. Those four had been broken apart by Jurchen soldiers and, finally able to reunite, journeyed ecstatically back to their homeland in Weizhou, only to see that their home had been burned to the ground by the Jurchens. Helpless, they were forced to go to the capital Bianliang [t/n: modern-day Kaifeng] to try and seek a living. However, the heavens had calculated unforeseeable events; some people have disastrous luck day and night. The four of them had just arrived at Bianliang when they came face to face with Jurchen soldiers. The leader of the soldiers gazed at them with a pair of triangular eyes and saw that Third Sister Ye was a natural beauty. He got off his horse and immediately grabbed her, roaring with laughter, and installed her onto the saddle, saying, "Young girl, come home with me and service me." How could Third Sister Ye agree? She struggled desperately against his grip. That Jurchen official barked, "If you don't come with me, I'll kill your family!" He lifted his mace and beat it down upon the head of Fourth Boy Ye, splitting open his brains. He died with a scream. Indeed:
"The underworld received a new ghost who had died in vain; the mortal world was robbed of one of its youths!
"Old Man Ye and Mother Ye were shocked with fear, they leapt over and held their son's corpse tightly, crying and wailing. The official lifted his mace, with one stroke each, he cleared his accounts. Third Sister Ye did not cry, saying, "Sir, there is no need for violence, I'll come home with you!" The official was overjoyed and brought Third Sister Ye home. He didn't know that Third Sister Ye had observed he was defenseless: suddenly she ran over, pulled out the sword on his hip, aimed at his chest, and went to stab him. It sounds slow, but in the moment it was lightning fast: that steel sword flew through the air and mighty revenge for her father, mother, and brother was in sight. She didn't know that the official was experienced in battle and familiar with martial arts. A push of the hand, and Third Sister Ye fell over. The official had just yelled, "Little villain!" when Third Sister Ye lifted the steel sword and struck it through her neck. Pity her:
"With unparalleled beauty of flowers and moonlight; a melancholy soul departs to the netherworld."
He spoke some parts, and sang some parts. The villagers were gritting their teeth and sighing with rage.
The man spoke again: "The crowd has heard, popular words tell it right:
bla bla
"But those Jurchen soldiers occupy our great Song dynasty's realm, killing people and lighting flames, raping and pillaging. There is no evil left not committed. Yet we don't see them encounter any punishment. Alas, the great Song's authorities did not live up to our expectations, our China had a vast army helmed by able generals, but as soon as the Jurchen army arrived, they fled far, far away, leaving the common people to suffer. Situations like Third Sister Ye's family tragedy are replicated tens of thousands of times in the regions to the north of the river. They are almost commonplace. Ladies and gentlemen, you live south of the river, it's as if you are truly in heaven. Your only fear is the arrival of the Jurchens. Indeed: it is better to be a dog in times of peace than a man in a world of chaos. Your humble servant Zhang Shiwu passes through this region today to present the audience with this tale, entitled 'Third Sister Ye's Impregnable Chastity'. I have said all that is needed; you have the right to make a departure." Pa pa pa: he knocked the two pear tree sheets together for a while, and retrieved a plate.
The crowd of villagers proceeded to place two or three wen each into the wooden plate, which was quickly filled with sixty or seventy wen's worth of donations. Zhang Shiwu gave thanks, put the copper coins into his bundle, and prepared to take his leave.
A twenty-something-year-old burly fellow emerged from the group of villagers and said, "Mr. Zhang, are you from the North?" He spoke with a Northern accent. Zhang Shiwu saw that he had a tall and strong physique, with thick eyebrows and large eyes, and said, "Indeed." The man then said, "Allow me to be a host; may I invite you, sir, to a few drinks?" Zhang Shiwu was overjoyed and said, "We are but strangers, how can I dare to intrude?" The man laughed: "After three drinks, we will no longer be strangers. M'surname is Guo. Guo Xiaotian is the name." Pointing at a fellow next to him with a clean and bright face, he said, "This is my good friend Yang Tiexin. Just now, the two of us heard you narrate 'Third Sister Ye's Impregnable Chastity', sir, and found it excellent, though we do have some questions about some of the lines." Zhang Shiwu said, "Of course, of course. It is great fortune for me to be able to meet the two of you today."
Guo Xiaotian brought Zhang Shiwu to a small inn at the edge of the village and sat down at a dining table.
The small inn's owner was a cripple who walked on two stilts. He slowly heated up two pots of yellow wine and set out a platter of broad beans, a platter of salted peanuts, and a platter of tofu, as well as three sliced-open salted eggs, then walked over to a stool at the door, where he watched the imminent sunset on the horizon, never looking over at the three men again.
Guo Xiaotian poured the wine and persuaded Zhang Shiwu to drink two cups, then said, "In the countryside, meat is only sold on the second day and the sixteenth day of the month. As such, sir, please do not be offended as we don't have anything with which to accompany the wine." Zhang Shiwu said, "Having wine is already good. From the sound of your accents, you, too, are Northerners." Yang Tiexin said, "The two of us are originally from Shandong province. Unable to bear the filth of the Jurchen dogs, we travelled here three years ago and enjoyed the welcome of the locals, so decided to settle down. Just now, sir, we heard you say that living south of the river is comparable to residing in heaven, with the only fear being the arrival of the Jurchens. Do you think the Jurchen army will cross the river?"
Zhang Shiwu sighed. "Southside is a world of sensual pleasures, with beautiful women everywhere you look. There is gold and silver all across the land. Does a day pass by without the Jurchens wishing to cross over? Whether or not they come is not the decision of the Jurchen kingdom but of the great Song's imperial court in Lin'an."
Guo Xiaotian and Yang Tiexin both felt shocked. They replied in unison, "How so?"
Zhang Shiwu said, "We Chinese have more than a hundred times the Jurchens' population. As long as the imperial court is willing to use loyal ministers and good generals, when a hundred of us battles one of them, how can the Jurchens defend themselves? The northern half of our great Song was gifted to the Jurchens by Huizong, Qingzong, and Gaozong all those years ago. Those three emperors employed evil ministers and oppressed their people. All the generals who set off to fight the Jurchen army were recalled or executed. Our beautiful country was handed over with two hands. It would have been impolite for the Jurchens to decline such a gift, so they accepted it. Today, if the imperial court insists on continuing to employ evil ministers, that would be to kneel on the ground and invite the arrival of the Jurchens. Why would they not come?"
Guo Xiaotian slammed the table so heavily that the cups, chopsticks, and plates were jolted into the air, saying, "Indeed!"
Zhang Shiwu said, "Back then, Emperor Huizong could only think of making himself immortal, of becoming a god. The evil ministers he used, such as Cai Jing, Zhu Mian, and Wang Fu, were shameless minions who served only to help the Emperor loot his people. Those like Tong Guan and Liang Shicheng were eunuchs who knew only to embellish and flatter. Those like Gao Qiu and Li Bangyan were wastrels who allowed the Emperor to indulge in whores. The Emperor never took care of serious matters; all throughout the day, if he was not seeking immortality or painting pictures, he was sending people all across the land to search for strange stones. As the Jurchens approached, he became helpless and crawled back into his shell, transferring leadership to his son Qinzong. At that time, the good minister Li Gang was defending the besieged capital Bianliang, aided by many great generals who sent troops to protect the Emperor. The Jurchen army were forced to retreat after unsuccessfully attempting to attack the city. Who would've known that Qinzong would heed his evil ministers' advice and recall Li Gang from the field? Instead of finding a reputable, experienced general who would be able to uphold the war effort, he sent the fraud Guo Jing who claimed to be able to command gods and deities and control the rains and torrents, asking the man to protect the city with his divine soldiers. The gods of war did not take heed. How could the capital not fall? Ultimately, Huizong and Qinzong were captured by the Jurchens. Those fools got what they deserved, but they doomed the millions of Chinese under their rule."
Guo Xiaotian and Yang Tiexin were enraged by what they heard. Guo Xiaotian said, “We have heard much about the terrible humiliation that was the capture of our two emperors by the Jurchens during the Jingkang era [t/n: the title of Qinzong's reign; for more info click here]. We have also heard about soldiers sent from the heavens, but it was in mere jest. Did such ridiculous things actually occur?" Zhang Shiwu said, "Would I lie to you?" Yang Tiexin said, "Afterwards, the Prince of Kang inherited the title of Emperor and settled in Nanjing, where he was served by loyal and courageous generals like Han Shizhong and Master Yue. He could have sent troops to reconquer the North –– even if they'd been unable to push towards the mighty dragon that is the Yellow River, it would not have been difficult to recover the capital Bianliang. Unfortunately, the traitor Qin Hui wanted peace at any cost, and caused the death of Master Yue."
Zhang Shiwu poured more wine for Guo and Yang, and then for himself. Swallowing the wine in one gulp, he said, "As Master Yue wrote: 'There we shall feast on barbarian flesh and drink the blood of the Xiongnu.' Those two lines of poetry expressed the feelings of the entire Chinese population. Ai, the traitor Qin Hui was lucky that we were born sixty years too late." Guo Xiaotian asked, "What would be different if we had been sixty years early?" Zhang Shiwu replied, "You two fearless and gallant heroes would go to Lin'an and take down that traitor. The three of us would devour his flesh and drink his blood instead of eating broad beans and drinking cold wine here!" At this the three men burst into laughter.
Yang Tiexin saw that the pot of wine was empty and ordered another. The three continued to rage against Qin Hui. The cripple brought another platter of broad beans and another platter of peanuts. Hearing their passionate insults, he suddenly chuckled coldly.
Yang Tiexin said, "Qu San, what's wrong? Do you think we're wrong to hate Qin Hui?" The cripple Qu San said, "You are right to insult him, where is the wrong in that? But I once heard people say that the real culprit behind killing Master Yue to restore peace was not Qin Hui." The three men were shocked, and asked, "If not Qin Hui, then who?" Qu San said, "Qin Hui was the prime minister. Peace or no peace, it was no matter to him, as he would have remained prime minister. Master Yue was determined to destroy the Jurchen kingdom and bring Huizong and Qinzong back. Once those two emperors return, what would happen to Emperor Gaozong?" He said this, then carried himself back to the stool on his crutches. He raised his head to watch the sky and returned to his thoughts. By his face, Qu San appeared to be around forty years old, but his back was bent and twisted, and his hair was white at the temples. From the back, he looked like an old man.
Outside, the voice of a girl shouted: "I killed tigers! I killed three tigers for Daddy to eat with his wine! The tigers are coming, the tigers are coming!" A cockerel fluttered in through the door, quickly followed by a girl holding a fire fork used to stoke fires. The girl was five or six years old, wore two pigtails, and had a dirty face and filth all over her clothes. She looked as though she had just crawled out of a swamp. Seeing Qu San, she laughed and said, "Dad, Dad, I killed tigers for you!" Qu San's face broke into a smile. With a gentle expression full of love, he said, "Good, good girl, how many tigers have you killed!" The girl held the fire fork and went back to chase the chicken, shouting, "I killed three big tigers, one, six, five, for Daddy to eat with his wine. Good girl will eat one herself!" The cockerel flapped out of the door, and the girl followed, still clutching the fire fork.
After a while, Zhang Shiwu said, "Yes! Yes! This brother said it well. Indeed, the culprit who caused Master Yue's death was not Qin Hui but Emperor Gaozong. That Emperor Gaozong is shameless at heart. He would naturally be able to do such a thing."
Guo Xiaotian asked, “How is he shameless?" Zhang Shiwu said, "At the time, Master Yue won victory after victory, leaving rivers of Jurchen blood and mountains of Jurchen corpses. Unable to parry any blows, they could only run for their lives. Our Chinese compatriots in the North rose up to block the barbarians' paths of retreat. Just as the Jurchens were frantically trying to gather their wits, suddenly Gaozong sent a declaration of surrender to beg for peace. Of course, the Jurchen king was ecstatic, and said: Peace is possible, but you must first kill Yue Fei. Subsequently Qin Hui concocted a treacherous plan that resulted in the death of Master Yue at Fengbo Pavilion. Master Yue met his misfortune in the twelfth month of the eleventh year of the Shaoxing era [t/n: the second and last era of the Gaozong Emperor], and within a month, on the first month of the twelfth year of the Shaoxing era, peace was successfully restored. The kingdoms of Song and Jin [t/n: Jurchen] are only separated by the flow of the Huaihe River. Emperor Gaozong became a slave to the Jin Kingdom. Do you know how the treaty of surrender was written?" Yang Tiexin said: "We must have lost a lot of face in that treaty."
Zhang Shiwu said, "Obviously! I still remember that treaty. Emperor Gaozong's name is Zhao Gou. In the surrender treaty, he wrote: 'Slave Gou says: I thank you for your magnanimous mercy and for honoring our land as your fief. I hope that for many generations to come, I will remain your slave. Every year on the Emperor's birthday I shall send ambassadors bearing celebratory gifts. Annually I will pay two hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver and donate two hundred and fifty thousand horses.' He not only made himself into a slave, but commanded his descendants to all be the slaves of the Jurchen Emperor. Him becoming a slave isn't enough, but all the commonfolk of China must become slaves along with him!"
With a peng sound, Guo Xiaotian slammed the table heavily once more, knocking over a cup of wine so that the wine seeped across the entire table. Furious, he said, "Dishonorable, dishonorable! What kind of an emperor is that!"
Zhang Shiwu said, "When the inhabitants of the entire nation heard this news, there was no limit to their indignation. The common people living to the north of the Huaihe River, seeing that there was no hope to recover their homeland, were so sad that they wept blood. Gaozong saw that his position on his precious throne was now as stable as Mount Tai, and praised Qin Hui for his achievements. Qin Hui had already been given the Dukedom of Lu, and now he was also a Great Master. His glory was greater than all, and his power had reached the skies. Gaozong acceded to Xiaozong, Xiaozong acceded to Guangzong... the Jurchens got to keep half of the nation. Thanks to Prime Minister Han Tuozhou, Gaozong acceded his throne to today's Emperor, Qingyuan. What will life be like from now on? Hehe, it's hard to tell, it's hard to tell!" He shook his head as he spoke.
Guo Xiaotian said, "What's hard
