The Great Song Dynasty's Soul-Forging in Progress

Yang Huayu puffed out his little chest and said seriously, "This uncle said the Yang family is full of widows, that's just something storytellers made up! We have plenty of people in our family! My father, Yang Wenguang, is now leading troops in the Northwest, he's very capable! My old servant, Grandpa Yang Hong, is still alive and farming in our hometown—he's over eighty and can still ride a horse! And my aunts, they married into the Zhe family, the Zhong family, and the Yao family, which one of them isn't a military family?"

He counted on his fingers, getting more and more excited: "My great-grandmother was from the Zhe family, my great-grandmother was from the royal family, my grandmother was from the Mu family, my mother was..." He suddenly stopped, scratched his head, and asked Du Jin'e, "Great-grandmother, my mother was from the Yun family, right?"

Du Jin'e couldn't help but chuckle, and affectionately ruffled his hair, saying, "Alright, alright, you always know so much."

Looking at the chubby-cheeked little fellow, Wang Zhonghua suddenly felt a surge of inexplicable warmth in his heart. This was the Yang family—a family with tragedy, sacrifice, and bloodshed, but also with inheritance, hope, and descendants like Yang Huayu who were full of vigor and vitality.

Du Jin'e noticed the doubt in his eyes and said softly, "Zhonghua, most of the stories you've heard started after the Battle of Jinshatan. That battle was indeed too tragic, so tragic that storytellers couldn't bear to recount it in detail. So they only told the tragic part, not what happened afterward."

She paused, her gaze becoming distant: "After Sixth Brother Yang Yanzhao returned, he guarded Hebei for nearly 20 years, forming two lines of defense between Shanxi and Hebei together with our father Yang Ye (who fought against the Liao in Shanxi) and our younger brother Yang Yanyu (who died in battle at Chenjiagu). After Sixth Brother's death, Yang Wenguang and others continued to guard Hebei, Shaanxi, and Guangxi, making it three generations of the Yang family guarding the border. Wenguang, that boy, followed his father through thick and thin in the military camp from a young age, and went to the battlefield in his teens. Now he is in the Northwest, guarding the border of our Great Song Dynasty, no less than his ancestors."

"Then..." Wang Zhonghua hesitated for a moment, "What about Yang Zongbao? I heard..."

"Zongbao?" Du Jin'e sighed softly. "He did indeed die in battle, and that is a tragedy for our Yang family. But he died a worthy death, sacrificing himself for his country. You met his daughter, Jinhua. His son, Wenguang, is in the Northwest. Many men of the Yang family guarded the borders and fought against the enemy; the Yang family bloodline has not been broken."

Mu Guiying chimed in, "Zhonghua, the stories you've heard have portrayed the Yang family as a symbol of suffering. But we in the Yang family know that we didn't survive on suffering. What we survived was—that someone in each generation would stand up and take up the spear."

Wang Zhonghua was shocked.

He suddenly remembered a sentence he had read in his previous life: "The backbone of a nation is not supported by tragedy, but by generation after generation standing silently, firmly, and one after another."

The story of the Yang family is moving not because of the tragedy of "a family of widows", but because - even in such a tragic situation, they did not fall.

(Please remember the website ①⓪①ⓚⓚⓢ.ⓒⓞⓜ for the fastest chapter updates)

Grandma Zhe walked back to her seat, sat down again, and tapped her cane lightly on the ground: "Zhonghua, the Yang family you see today is the real Yang family. There are old and young, men and women, some fighting on the front lines, and some managing things in the rear. We also quarrel, we also have disagreements, and we also bicker over trivial matters. But we have one rule that has never changed—"

Her gaze was sharp as she swept over everyone in the hall: "Whenever there is war on the border, someone from the Yang family will go to war. Whenever the Song Dynasty is in danger, someone from the Yang family will step forward. This rule has been in place for nearly a hundred years, from the first day I married into the Yang family until now, without interruption."

She looked at Yang Huayu: "Xiaoyu'er, have you remembered?"

Yang Huayu straightened his chest and said loudly, "I remember! Don't worry, Great-Grandma, when I grow up, I also want to go to the battlefield and become a great general like Grandpa and Dad!"

Du Jin'e and Mu Guiying exchanged a glance and smiled. Their smiles held a mixture of relief, heartache, and a touch of unspeakable bitterness—this child didn't yet understand what going to the battlefield meant.

But that's just how the Yang family is.

Knowing full well that the road ahead is one of blood and fire, they still send their children up there generation after generation.

Watching this scene, Wang Zhonghua suddenly realized that the stories of the Yang family generals he had heard in his previous life were just the tip of the iceberg. The real Yang family was more complex, more real, and more moving than those in the stories.

He stood up and bowed deeply to Lady Zhe: "Lady Zhe, I have learned a great deal."

Lady Zhe waved her hand: "Go, invite Qin Tiehua in. We need to discuss the 'Secret Treasure Sword'."

Wang Zhonghua nodded and turned to leave. As he passed Yang Huayu, the little boy suddenly tugged at his sleeve, looked up at him, and asked, "Big brother, do you know my dad? He's in the Northwest, and I haven't seen him in a long time."

Wang Zhonghua squatted down to look him in the eye: "I don't know your father, but I've heard of him. He was a great general of the Song Dynasty."

Yang Huayu's eyes lit up, and he grinned, "Of course! My dad's amazing! When I grow up, I'll be even more amazing than him and wipe out these border bandits!"

Wang Zhonghua rubbed his head, stood up, and strode out.

Behind him, Lady Zhe watched his retreating figure and said to Ouyang Xiu, "This child is not bad."

Ouyang Xiu smiled: "The Grand Tutor has a keen eye."

"I've lived for over a hundred years, so I'm pretty good at judging people." Lady Zhe paused, tapping her cane lightly. "He has the bones of the Yang family."

Inside the hall, the lights were bright. Outside the window, the night was as dark as ink.

Inside the Hall of Strategies, the lights shone brightly. A grand contest concerning justice, power, art, and life was concluded in this mansion of loyal and courageous generals, culminating in the most crucial strategic agreement.

Qin Tiehua and Wang Zhonghua, having survived countless brushes with death, were overwhelmed with emotion upon their reunion. The secret treasure within the precious sword "Jinghong" was carefully retrieved; each page was stained with the wind and snow of Chenzhou, and soaked with the blood and tears of Sanyi Village.

Outside the window, the stars were hidden in the night sky of Bianjing, as if a thunderstorm was brewing that would sweep everything away.

The center of the thunderstorm has been located.

On the tenth day of the third month, in the northeast corner of Bianjing, on the banks of the Jinshui River.

The morning mist, like a veil, shrouded the Jinshui River in a dreamlike atmosphere, making the thousands of bamboo stalks on both banks appear even more verdant and imposing in the damp, chilly air. These bamboos were no ordinary specimens; they were all spotted and purple bamboos carefully selected by Ning Zhongze from famous mountains and rivers in the south. The naturally formed cloud-like patterns and tear-like marks on the bamboo joints seemed to be the marks etched by time. Deep within the bamboo forest, a small courtyard with a bamboo fence, half-leaning against the mountainside, appeared and disappeared. The three thatched huts, with old bamboo as their frame and thatch as their roof, seemed simple, yet they subtly conformed to the principles of Qimen Dunjia (a form of divination and strategy). An ordinary person, without a guide, would return to the starting point after circling around three times.

This morning, Ning Zhongze, as usual, inspected his medicinal herb garden. This garden, no more than half an acre in size, was located on a sunny, gentle slope behind his courtyard. He had terraced it with stones, creating distinct layers. The herbs planted there were not ordinary ones, but rare medicinal plants such as snow lotus, blood ginseng, and Zhongnan Poria cocos, each one receiving the same meticulous care he would give a peerless sword. For fourteen years, he had personally loosened the soil and weeded every morning. Although his hands had been cleansed of the blood and gore of the martial world, the calluses on his knuckles, as thick as iron, and the deep, bone-revealing scars on his palms, silently told the story of his arduous past.

Those hands, gazing at the soil, were as steady as a rock, the damp scent of morning dew and earth still lingering between their fingers. Only he knew that every night for the past fourteen years, when the moonlight streamed through the window and fell on his bedside, those hands would unconsciously clench into fists, the knuckles making a faint cracking sound—as if he could still hold the "Azure Destiny" sword that had once shaken the martial arts world, yet as if everything had been lost forever with Zhao Yunrang's passing.

He stood at the edge of the herb garden, his figure still as upright as a pine tree, his faded blue cloth robe unable to conceal his imposing presence. Ning Zhongze was sixty-three years old this year, but due to his mastery of internal energy, he appeared to be only in his fifties. Only the frost at his temples and the deep crow's feet at the corners of his eyes betrayed the true marks of time. His face was lean and refined, with distinct features as if carved by a knife and axe, his sword-like eyebrows slanting upwards into his temples, his brows reflecting the sharpness of twenty years ago and the melancholy of today. At this moment, he held a short note untied from a carrier pigeon's leg in his palm, his fingers long and slender, knuckles prominent, the fingertips gleaming with a cold, jade-like light, a manifestation of his mastery of the "Mysterious Ice Heart Technique."

Ouyang Xiu's calligraphy still possessed a strong, vigorous style, revealing the integrity of a scholar. But this time, the content—"Wang Zhonghua," "The Chenzhou Injustice," and "Western Region Evil Arts"—was like a rusty key, forcefully melting the ice of memories he had deliberately sealed away at the age of fourteen.

Wang Zhonghua.

This unfamiliar name is inexplicably linked with words like "Chenzhou," "wrongful conviction," and "Western Regions sorcery," like a lightning bolt cleaving open Ning Zhongze's deliberately frozen past.

Zhao Yunrang.

That name, carrying the scent of blood and fire, broke through the seal of memory.

"The Great Song Dynasty: The Soul Forging in Progress" is officially available starting today.

As I write this, it's one in the morning outside the window. The latest chapter of the document is still open on the computer screen. Wang Zhonghua and Ning Zhongze are studying the Chenzhou city defense map by the light of a half-burnt candle in the dilapidated temple of Lao Jun Guan. I don't know if they can successfully infiltrate the dungeon tonight, I don't know how long Liu Xinyi can hold out, I don't know if Qin Tiehua is secretly sharpening his knife again in Tianbo Mansion in Bianjing—these answers will have to wait until tomorrow night, when I sit down and write them down word by word.

It's 380,000 words long, written from last year to this year.

It's not fast, it's not slow. It's about sitting in front of the computer every night, with a lamp and a cup of tea, and throwing yourself into a world from a thousand years ago. I follow Wang Zhonghua as he wakes up by the Shahe River, watching him start from a bowl of spicy soup, watching him have Qiu Laohu's knife to his throat, watching him fight his way out step by step, hiding a knife behind Chen Shimei's smile.

Before I wrote this book, someone asked me: Why would someone who writes online novels want to tackle such a big topic as "soul forging"?

I can't quite put my finger on it. It's just that we've heard too many stories of "time travel grants instant power" and read too many feel-good novels about "glass and gunpowder sweeping across the world." But what about the real Song Dynasty? What about that culturally prosperous yet militarily weak, seemingly magnificent yet turbulent undercurrents? What about those who refused to kneel in the mud?

I want to write about them.

I want to write about a different Qin Xianglian—not the tragic figure from traditional operas who beats the drum to plead for justice, but a mother who risks her life to protect her child in a chaotic world. She says to the assassin, "Sir, kill me from behind, just please spare my poor child."

At that moment, she not only knew that Han Qi had come to kill her, but she also felt that this military officer was pitifully thin.

I wanted to write a different kind of Liu Xinyi—not a pretty face waiting to be rescued by the male protagonist, but a resolute doctor who would rather fake her death than become a plaything of the powerful. In her cage, she closed her eyes and faked her death, using the most resolute way to protect her innocence, protect Wang Zhonghua's rear, and, more importantly, protect her own soul.

I also want to write about a different Han Qi—from being ordered to kill to recognizing and saving a loved one, achieving self-redemption with half a cornbread. He said, "I ate that half cornbread, then knelt down and kowtowed to her three times. I said, 'Sister-in-law, in this life, you are the only family I recognize.'"

I'd rather write about a different kind of time traveler.

Wang Zhonghua didn't come here to cheat; he came to "forge souls." Forge the soul of the common people, forge the soul of the army, forge the soul of the nation, forge the soul of ethnic integration. He too felt fear, he too felt pain, and he too was devastated after Di Qing's death. But he never knelt.

This era desperately needs people who refuse to kneel. The Song Dynasty a thousand years ago needed them, and we need them today too.

My hands trembled as I wrote about Qin Tiehua's solitary northward journey, hacking away at pursuers on the frozen Yellow River. My eyes welled up with tears as I wrote about the chapter where those around him died one by one, and Wang Zhonghua held their bodies, howling to the heavens. When I wrote about Qin Xianglian handing half a cornbread to Han Qi, saying, "Eat a bite, so you'll have the strength to walk the long way," I put down my keyboard, stood on the balcony for a long time, and let the night breeze soothe my sore eyes.

These people have lived in my heart for so long. So long that sometimes, even after turning off the computer, I can still hear them talking in my ear. When Qin Tiehua cursed "bastards," when Liu Xinyi calmly said "a doctor's diagnosis is observation, auscultation, inquiry, and palpation," when Zhe Taijun slammed her iron staff on the ground and declared "the Yang family has an inescapable responsibility"—I knew I had to write them down so that more people could see them.

The book is now available for purchase, which means the road ahead will be even tougher. The rise of Chenzhou, the suppression of bandits in Junzhou, the pacification of Dali… every battle must be fought, every move must be made. As an amateur writer, I have a stockpile of manuscripts, but they're almost gone. After the book goes on sale, I'll write and post as I go, sometimes until 2 AM, sometimes I'll just fall asleep when a good word or phrase comes to mind, so I'll quickly get up and continue writing. Sometimes I write, delete, and rewrite, all so as not to disappoint you, my reader.

I dare not say this book is exceptionally good, nor that it will satisfy everyone. But I dare say that every word was written with my heart. Every plot point was carefully considered. Every character was written as if they were living, breathing people. I want Wang Zhonghua, Qin Tiehua, Liu Xinyi, Ning Zhongze, Li Jingniang, Ouyang Xiu… to enter your heart one by one.

If you like this book, if you were moved by Wang Zhonghua's "Don't believe me? Let's try it," if you also want to see what happens to those who refuse to kneel down—

Please subscribe to support us.

A subscription costs a few cents, but it's the author's motivation to stay up through every late night. A chapter subscription costs a dime, but it's the only reason the author can continue writing this book.

I know that paying for reading is a hurdle for many book lovers. I also know that life is tough for everyone these days. But I still want to say: if you have the ability, if you truly love this book, please help me. Let me know that this dedication of 380,000 words isn't just one person's self-pity.

Finally, let's conclude with the poem from the beginning:

A dream of Shahe enters the deep clouds, its soul can be found over nine hundred years.

At the bottom of the pool, a lone courage still remains; at the ferry crossing, the heart of a young man still boils.

Judge Di's tears have dried, but his sword remains; the old drunkard has finished his poem and is pouring himself wine.

Do not say that scholars lack integrity; their spirit resonates throughout the Song Dynasty.

The road ahead is long, let's walk it hand in hand.

Don't believe me? Let's try it.

Azure sky

Spring 2026, by the window