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Chapter 36: The Scarlet New Year (I)

In the fourth year of the Dajin Tianhui, on December 29 of the first year of Jingkang of the Great Song Dynasty, Huining City

The sunset at dusk sprinkled on the water covered with thick ice, and the gorgeous sunset covered the western sky, scarlet like blood.

The howling north wind, mixed with the slightest cold, seeped into the thatched hut of the Jurchens, blowing away the faint warmth brought by the winter sun.

Although the hooves of the Jurchen Iron Riders had traveled all over the desert and Liaodong, and broke into the world of flowers and flowers in the Central Plains, the so-called Duning City they established between the white mountains and black waters was nothing more than a hodgepodge of slums composed of a mess of sheds and thatched huts. In the eyes of the Song and Khitan people, who had long since become civilized, this could not be said to be a city, at most it could only be said to be a walled city - or even a village!

But this is also a helpless thing, because the Wanyan clan that established the Jin Kingdom was originally just a rather backward small tribe. Even if they took advantage of the situation to rise under the fortune of the times, it only took more than ten years to destroy the Liao and Song dynasties, and quickly established a huge empire with a territory of thousands of miles, but in their bones, they still can't get rid of the nature of the barbaric and ignorant barbarian tribes.

-- Before Wanyan Agu rebelled against Liao, the entire Jurchens in Northeast China were under the rule of Liao. Among them, the Jurchens who accepted the direct rule of the Liao State in the Liao River valley were called "mature Jurchens", and their Sinicization was relatively high, and most of them had settled animal husbandry and farming as their main way of life. The Jurchens, who were still in a semi-barbaric state on the edge of the Khitans' sphere of influence, were called "Shengjurchens".

And the Wanyan Division, which established the Jin Kingdom, is the most powerful tribe among the Jurchens.

These "born Jurchens" live between the white mountains and black waters, those mountains covered with dense forests, tempered by the cold wind of the northern part of the Saibei to be fierce, sleeping in sheds, hunting bears and tigers, drinking bad wine, everyone is a natural good hunter, even the Khitan warriors dare not fight with these Jurchens.

On the one hand, the leaders of the Jurchen tribal alliance were named "festival envoys", and on the other hand, they were forbidden to associate with mature Jurchens. In addition, he also made things difficult for the Jurchens in commercial trade, and speculated all kinds of daily necessities to sky-high prices. So much so that in the era of the rule of the Liao State, although the Jurchens sat on the fertile black land of the northeast, they lived a poor life of wanting nothing. A tiger skin can't be exchanged for a handful of salt, a basket of mink skin can't be exchanged for an iron pot, and every year they have to help the Liao people hunt Haidongqing for free, pay tribute to horses, gold, pearls, honey, pine seeds and ginseng, and even have to send the most beautiful woman in the clan to sleep with the Khitan envoy!

Such a completely undisguised cruel exploitation will naturally arouse the monstrous anger of the Jurchen warriors. More than ten years ago, under the leadership of Wanyan Aguta, the Jurchens raised troops against Liao, repeatedly defeated the strong with the weak, defeated the decaying Liao army, and finally swept through the north, killing the Khitan Emperor, and prospered on behalf of Liao. After that, he swept across the Central Plains in one go, drank the Yellow River, fought millions of Song troops, and created brilliant martial arts far superior to the Khitans.

However, at this time, it was only a little more than ten years since the establishment of the Dajin Empire. Although the territory of the empire has begun to take shape, the capital and palace have not yet been built--before, when the first emperor of the Jin Kingdom, Wanyan Aguta, was proclaimed emperor in Huining, there were only dilapidated straw huts in the city, and no decent houses could be found. Wanyan Aguda had to set up a felt tent to hold the enthronement ceremony and entertain the envoys of various ministries, known as the "emperor's village". It was not until the end of his reign that he planned to build a palace in Hoeryeong, but before it could be completed, he died (1123). After the second emperor Wanyan Wu begged to buy the throne, he finally began to recruit slaves and prisoners of war on a large scale from the second year of Tianhui (1124), collecting wood, bricks and stones, and preparing to design and build a magnificent imperial city of Jin, so that Huining, a simple and wild city, had a bit of the grandeur of the imperial capital.

But the problem is that in the wild land of Saibei, although there are all kinds of wood and stone, it is really difficult to find enough skilled craftsmen. Moreover, at this time, the rule of the Jurchens over the northern land was still extremely unstable, and the old Liao territory was full of ruins, barren fields, poor livelihoods, and continuous rebellions among various tribes, so that the manpower and material resources that the Jin State could mobilize were very limited. However, in order to prepare for the southward attack on the Song Dynasty, the limited financial revenue had to be extremely inclined to military spending. As a result, the construction project of the capital is also moving and stopping, and the progress is very slow...... It was a harsh winter of minus tens of degrees Celsius, and even the ferocious and brutal Jurchen nobles had to let the slaves on the construction site stop to rest on the fire, lest they freeze to death en masse.

As for the people of the Jurchen Wanyan tribe, they were in full swing with wine, meat, and feasts, preparing to celebrate the New Year - although the snow was particularly heavy this year, many livestock were frozen to death, and the harvest was not very good, but the Jurchen warriors in their last southern expedition to the Song Kingdom snatched back from the hands of the weak Song people: gorgeous silks, sweet soju, smooth porcelain, sweet preserves, extravagant spices, and delicate pastries...... It is enough for the women and children of the family to live a comfortable fat year......

However, no one knew that it was already the last twilight in Huining City.

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In the twilight of dusk, a burly, muscular middle-aged man, dressed in a nondescript strange dragon robe, was embraced by a group of Jurchen knights, rode a horse from the suburbs of the mountains and forests, and then stepped on the path buried by snow, and slowly entered the city of Huining.

This is the second generation of the emperor of the Jin Kingdom, the younger brother of the founding ancestor Wanyan Aguta, and the royal driver of the Jin Taizong Wanyan Wu begging.

In the evening, he had just returned from a hunting trip in the wild, carrying a few rabbits he had just caught to "drive back to the palace".

In the twilight of the setting sun, Emperor Wanyan Wu Qimai rode his horse at the gate of several palaces that had just been completed, looking out towards the messy neighborhood of Huining, the so-called capital of the Jin Kingdom, the land of Jurchen Longxing, still full of thatched huts and tents, narrow streets and alleys, and dirt on the bumpy roads. Not only did there not have a few decent mansions and official offices in the whole city, but there were not even real city walls and gates...... This makes the city look like a dilapidated refugee camp and a big village in the middle of nowhere, but it doesn't look like the capital of a new empire with a vast territory of thousands of miles and might, and there is not a trace of royal grace and overlord majesty!

In the eyes of the people of the Song Dynasty, this "Imperial Palace of the Son of Heaven" of the Jurchens is even inferior to an ordinary county town in the Central Plains.

And the Jin Imperial Court, huddled in such a large slum, is naturally full of the "local atmosphere" of the grass platform team.

However, in the eyes of the people of the Jurchen tribe who have not seen much of the world, a settlement like this is already very good.