Prologue

THE YEAR IS 1205. FOR DECADES THE SONG EMPIRE HAS 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 taken the Liao's southern capital, the city that would be captured and recaptured under successive dynasties and eventually be known as Peking. A brief alliance between the Song and the Jin Empires against the Liao brought peace to the plains of Manchuria, but after the Jin attacked and captured the Song capital in Kaifeng not two years later, the Song have been fighting the Jin ever since. Successive defeats have pushed the Song further south, past the Yangtze and the River Huai, much to the anxiety of the Chinese who have fled with their Empire to safety.

The River Huai has long marked the psychological boundary between north and south China. The south is lush in comparison with the northern steppes and central plains, its landscape criss-crossed with rivers and spotted with lakes. The climate is hotter and more humid, wheat fields give way to rice paddies, and karst peaks soar up into the clouds. Having always been far from the capital in the north, this is a landscape that has long resisted the taming forces of the Empire, where the Great Canal's manmade torrents flow into the wild rapids of the southern rivers.

But for all its seeming lawlessness, the soils of the south have proved fertile ground for the fleeing Song Empire. Here they have 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 delicacies of crispy duck, steamed crab, and badger and goose meat.

Despite its grandeur, however, this is a troubled city. The local Chinese population cannot be sure if their officials are working for them, or for the Jin. In the surrounding villages, food is scarce as the Empire diverts resources from hardworking farmers into the army's fight against the Jin, lining their pockets as they do so. Taxes are crippling and the officials who are supposed to protect them seem to care little for their plight. Far from being a civilising force, the Empire appears to be little concerned for its citizens, and is rather more interested in making its officials rich.

For while the Empire regards the south as unruly, law and order in this part of China is in reality maintained by a proud community of men and women who have trained for years in the martial arts. They name themselves for the symbolic landscape of rivers and lakes that is their home, the jianghu , or even the "martial forest", the wulin , both metaphors for their community. Organised into sects, schools, clans and bands of sworn brothers, or even travelling as lone "wanderers of the lakes and rivers", they live by a moral code they call xia . Rivalries between the sects and martial artists are fierce, moves are jealously guarded, and disputes are settled by hand-to-hand combat. But on one thing they are united: the ineptitudes of Song Empire must not be allowed to destroy their country.

Fuelled by patriotic fervour and anger at the corruption eating away at the Empire, a rebellion is taking hold of the countryside. It is up to these martial arts masters of the south to save their country from complete destruction at the hands of the northern tribes.