Legend of Condor Heroes by Jin Yong
Prologue
The year is 1205. For decades the Song Empire had
been fighting an invasion from the
north by the Jurchen tribes of Manchuria.
Skilled horsemen and keen archers,
the diverse Jurchen tribes were first united under the charismatic chieftain
Wanyan Aguda in 1115, after which they set their sights on the riches of their
Han Chinese neighbours. Within ten years of unification, the newly established
Jin Empire had captured the southern capital of the Liao Empire, a city that
would be captured and retaken under subsequent dynasties and eventually become
known as Zhongdu. A brief alliance between the Song Empire and the Jin Empire
against the Liao Empire brought peace to the plains of Manchuria. However,
after the Jin Empire attacked and captured the Song capital at Bianliang less
than two years later, the Song had been at war with the Jin ever since. A
series of defeats had pushed the Song further south, beyond the Yangtze River and
the Huai River, much to the anxiety of the Chinese who had fled with their
Empire to safety.
The Huai River had long marked the
psychological boundary between northern and southern China. The south was more
fertile than the northern grasslands and central plains, its landscape
criss-crossed with rivers and spotted with lakes.
The climate became hotter and more
humid, wheat fields gave way to rice paddies, and karst peaks rose high into
the clouds. Having always been far from the capital in the north, this was a
landscape that had long resisted the taming forces of the Empire, where the
man-made waterways of the Grand Canal flow into the wild rapids of the southern
rivers.
But for all their apparent
lawlessness, the soils of the south had proved fertile ground for the fleeing
Song Empire. There they had established one of the world’s largest cities, Lin’an,
a bustling commercial centre of towering, overcrowded wooden buildings, grand
stone courtyard houses, stalls selling pork buns and steaming bowls of noodles,
as well as elegantly decorated tea houses serving the finest imperial dishes
such as crispy duck, steamed crab, and badger and goose meat.
But despite its splendor, the city
was troubled. The local Chinese population could not be sure whether their
officials work for them, or for the Jin. In the surrounding villages, food was
scarce as the Empire diverted resources from hard-working farmers to the armies
fighting the Jin, lining their pockets as they did so. Taxes were crippling and
the officials who were supposed to protect them seemed to care little for their
plight. Far from being a civilising force, the Empire appeared to be little
concerned for its citizens, and was rather more interested in making its
officials rich.
For while the Empire regarded the
south as unruly, law and order in this part of China was in reality maintained
by a proud community of men and women who had trained for years in the martial
arts. They name themselves for the symbolic landscape of rivers and lakes that was
their home, the martial world, or even the martial forest, the martial arts
world, both metaphors for their community.
Organized into sects, schools,
clans, and sworn brother groups, or even traveling as lone wanderers in the
martial world, they lived by a moral code they called xia. Competition between
sects and martial arts masters was fierce, moves were closely guarded, and
disputes were settled by hand-to-hand combat. But on one thing they were united,
the incompetence of Song Empire must not be allowed to destroy their country.
Driven by patriotic fervor and anger
at the corruption that had eaten away at the Empire, a rebellion began to take
hold of the countryside. It was up to these southern martial arts masters to
save their country from complete destruction at the hands of the northern
tribes.
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