One

  It's already very cold here in autumn.

  Seven beggar-like old men, with their dirty and tattered cotton-padded jackets tied around them with hemp ropes, carried firewood bundles across a desolate area. The leader saw the last old man struggling to keep up and said: "Let's all sit down and take a break!"

  Not far away, there were several large stones. Everyone walked over and put down their loads of firewood to sit on the stones. Only after sitting down did they feel that these stones were too flat and too huge. Two old men stood up and walked around the stone a few times before squatting down to examine the patterns on the stone more closely. The other three also got up, looked at the stone and then at the entire desolate land, quickly took a few steps out and then returned with their heads lowered.

  Everyone remained silent, but judging from their expressions, they seemed like different people. Their eyes sparkled, their eyebrows furrowed, and their posture straightened.

  These old men were scholars from southern China who were exiled to the northeastern region during the Qing dynasty. They had all been examiners for the imperial examination, the highest elite in the national intellectual circle at that time, and were accused of wrongdoing due to several unclear "exam scandals". Many colleagues had already been killed, and they narrowly escaped death and were sentenced to "exile to Ningguta". Ningguta is now Ning'an City, Heilongjiang Province.

  Exile often involved family members, thousands of miles of trekking in shackles, and wives and daughters dying halfway. These weak scholars became slaves for hard labor as soon as they arrived at the place of exile, mainly working in lime kilns and horse breeding, beaten and humiliated every day, and starving.

  In the first year of their labor, what they thought about most was the injustice of the Imperial Examination case and hoped that one day a swift horse would appear in the distance, bringing an edict to clear their names. For a whole year, their eyes were strained from looking out for such a horse, but none appeared. In the second year, they no longer thought about clearing their names, but instead thought most about their parents back in their hometown and their wives who had died on the way. In the third year, they realized that they had almost become authentic laborers and constantly recited the poems they had learned in the past to comfort themselves. By the fourth year, they had even given up comforting themselves and no longer thought about anything, treating themselves as completely illiterate commoners.

  Fortunately, this area was indeed overgrown with weeds and had few people, without a single dilapidated temple or a door sign that could evoke their memories of culture and cause unnecessary sadness.

  However, these few stones today awakened a long-sealed corner in their hearts.

  They immediately made a judgment, which is the foundation. But from the volume, the pillar is extremely large and can only be a palace. From the desolate state, it should have been abandoned for hundreds or even thousands of years.

  What palace is this? Which dynasty's thing? They quickly walked into the dusty old book library deep in their mind, roughly flipping through, and then carefully flipping through...

  They didn't say a word to each other. They simply reached out to touch the carvings on the stone, looked at each other, gazed into the distance at the surrounding landscape, and then looked at each other again. That look was one they had shared before in the Hanlin Academy, where they were extremely familiar with each other.

  Everyone felt a deep sense of wonder, thinking that everything they had forgotten for many years would suddenly come back.

  Two

  Before long, the old men shouldered their bundles of firewood and set off again.

  The silence was broken by the old man walking at the end, who only lightly spat out four words: "Li Bai's drunken writing."

  An old man immediately responded: "Bohai State!"

  What the old people thought of was an age-old story.

  The Tang Dynasty received a letter from a vassal state, but the text on the letter was unfamiliar to everyone. After circulating for many days, no one could decipher it, which was embarrassing for the proud suzerain state of Tang. Suddenly, He Zhizhang, who served as Secretary Monitor, thought that his friend Li Bai might recognize this script because Li Bai was born in a foreign land and had traveled extensively, seeing much and knowing widely. Upon hearing this, Emperor Xuanzong ordered Li Bai to be summoned.

  Li Bai was found at a wine table, already somewhat drunk. He came to the palace, met with the Emperor, and saw the letter. At a glance, he smiled, recognizing the text. He translated it sentence by sentence for Tang Xuanzong, who asked him to immediately write a reply in the same script, also to show off the abundance of talented people in the Tang Dynasty, proficient in various scripts.

  Li Bai, upon hearing the Emperor's intention, felt a bit pleased. Taking advantage of the lingering wine excitement, he thought to show off his skills in the palace. He glanced sideways at the people standing around him and said to the Emperor, "I can write a reply, but I want Yang Guozhong to grind the ink for me, and Gao Lishi to take off my boots." The Emperor nodded in agreement. Thus, the powerful Yang Guozhong and Gao Lishi reluctantly stepped forward, surrounding Li Bai and busying themselves with their tasks.

  The question is, which vassal state wrote this letter, making the emperor so concerned?

  Balhae State

  The old people who were exiled during the Qing dynasty guessed correctly. They later wrote down this accidental discovery halfway, in their own notes. After many years of twists and turns, I saw it.

  Actually, the Balhae state was established only two or three years before Li Bai's birth and is almost of the same age as Li Bai. The founder was Dae Joyeong, the leader of the Sumo Mohe tribe. According to historical records, after Emperor Xuanzong of Tang ascended to the throne, he appointed Dae Joyeong as "Left Brave Guard General", "King of Balhae Prefecture" and "Governor of Hegan State". The regime operated according to the Tang system, with Chinese being the common language. Was it that the letter Li Bai read was written before they commonly used Chinese? Was it precisely this inconvenience that led them to start learning Chinese?

  Of course, perhaps Li Bai's drunken writing story is just a story.

  But anyway, Bohai State is not a story, and that vast ruin is not a story.

  The ruins seen by Qing dynasty exiles were those of the capital of Balhae, namely "Longquanfu" or "Supreme Capital".

  The exiles had no right and no opportunity to come back for a closer examination. From the scattered notes left behind, it was only known that an old man came twice, both times not long, and he also did not have the conditions for further research.

  It's up to our generation to carefully examine this matter.

  Three

  I have been to the site of Yongquan Fu in Beijing many times. The reason is that one of the focuses of my historical research is the rise and fall of northern ethnic minorities.

  The first thing I saw was the foundation of the outer city wall, which was a rammed earth base over two meters high and ten or more meters wide, like a natural embankment stretching far into the distance.

  On this base, there should have been a magnificent high wall made of large bricks. Unfortunately, this is not the original forest where Angkor Wat is hidden, but the open and vast northeastern plain. A deserted city can hardly preserve anything, and everything that can be carried away by human power has been taken away. Generation after generation, every corner was searched clean, even the big stones seen by the Qing dynasty exiles were gone, leaving only this earth base, growing grass, trees, quietly waiting.

  Going further in, I saw the same unmovable gate foundation and column base. The scale of the ancient city can be vaguely imagined.

  From the site, the Beijing Longquan Palace is composed of three concentric rings: outer city, inner city and palace city. The outer city has a circumference of more than 30 miles. The entire city is divided into two areas by a wide thoroughfare that runs north-south, and is further divided into numerous square blocks by over ten main streets, indeed the layout and style of Chang'an City.

  The northern half of the capital is the palace city where the rulers work and live, with a wall circumference of five miles. From the ruins and artifacts, it can be seen that there were five magnificent palaces lined up in the inner city. Outside the east wall was the imperial garden, which should have had lakes, pavilions, and artificial hills.

  In the Imperial Palace, one of the most intact relics is a well documented in literature, called "Eight Treasure Lapis Lazuli Well". The well wall is built with basalt stone and has almost no damage.

  I lingered by the well for a long time, imagining all that had happened beside it over the past thousand years. I peered in and saw its surface glimmering like a cold eye that had seen too much and was finally tired of looking.

  An official told me that from various materials, this city was likely one of the largest cities in Asia between the 8th and 9th centuries AD. At that time, it was not only the first of all cities in Balhae but also a trade hub in Northeast Asia, connecting the distant Chang'an and Japan into an economic channel.

  People can infer the prosperity of the city at that time from a simple comparison. On the Peony River in the west and north of the city, the remains of five wide-spanning bridges were found. Nowadays, modern life for tens of thousands of people is more than sufficient with just one bridge. Just think about what a spectacular scene it must have been back then!

  Can such a city really disappear so thoroughly?

  To solve this problem, I spent a lot of time studying in the pile of ancient books and found that there are not many records about Bohai State. The "Old Book of Tang" and "New Book of Tang" have some points, Japan and Korea also preserved some auxiliary materials, which are relatively scattered. This regime itself did not leave any words or language, just like a deceased person who did not leave a will, can only rely on rumors from neighbors to guess, and those neighbors have long withered.

  Even now, the materials I have in hand are still insufficient to write a complete paper, and can only depict a rough outline.

  Generally speaking, from the time of Da Zong Rong, Tang Xuanzong and Li Bai's interactions, Balhae became a vassal state that fully absorbed the civilization of the Tang Dynasty. Of course, it also became the most advanced regime on the vast land of Northeast China. This status concealed great danger.

  Danger comes first from within.

  After all, they have just come from a relatively primitive nomadic ecology. Any major progress will make the original leaders who fought together unable to keep up, causing conflicts again and again. Many leaders turned against each other, raised their knives in threat, and even returned to the jungle. For a long time, those who advocated for accepting the advanced civilization of the Tang Dynasty were bound to be lonely tragic figures. They may have been seen as "pro-Tang" traitors who forgot their ancestors, but the Tang Dynasty may not necessarily consider them as one of their own people.

  At this point, Dae Mun-ui of Balhae during the Tang Xuanzong period is a typical example. His brother was once the ruler of Balhae and always wanted to oppose the Tang Dynasty. He argued several times in vain and escaped to the Tang Dynasty. His brother then negotiated with the Tang court, saying that my younger brother Dae Mun-ui opposed the military order and hid here, you should help me kill him.

  Tang Xuanzong could not kill Dae Muyeon, but he also couldn't offend his brother who actually held power. After some thought, he came up with a plan. He sent several diplomats to Balhae and told his brother that Dae Muyeon had come to him in desperation, and it wouldn't be right for him to kill him, but they should respect his wishes, so he had already exiled him to the remote Lingnan region.

  The matter would have been over, but those diplomats who had stayed in Bohai for a long time accidentally revealed that Daejong was not exiled. The brother got angry and wrote to Tang Xuanzong to protest. Tang Xuanzong could only say that the diplomats were talking nonsense and punished them.

  Historian Sima Guang later made an interesting criticism of this matter in the "Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government", roughly saying: The Tang Dynasty should have used its prestige to make its vassal states sincerely convinced. When the brother of Balhae came to surrender to prevent a war against the Tang, you should have had the courage to declare him right and innocent, while his older brother was wrong. Even if you didn't send troops to punish him, you should have made it clear who was right or wrong. However, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang neither had the ability to subdue the older brother nor could he openly protect the younger brother, and instead resorted to petty tricks like a commoner, only to be questioned back and unable to lift his head, so he ended up being rude to his own diplomats, which was really embarrassing. (See "Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government", Volume 213)

  ）

  Sima Guang is right, but he is too bookish. In history, apart from the loud actions of a few great figures, most politics are realistic. Tang Xuanzong was already struggling to manage the vast affairs of the court, how could he pay a huge price for a power struggle far away from himself?

  So, the poor gate art could only hide in Chang'an City, afraid of being discovered by the people of Bohai State, and afraid to expose the lie fabricated by Tang Xuanzong for him. He missed his hometown, but his hometown couldn't accommodate him; he drew close to the Tang Dynasty, but the Tang Dynasty couldn't help him.

  What brought him some comfort was that, thanks to his and others' efforts, the Balhae state gradually received the illumination of Tang civilization. Moreover, due to natural laws, conservative forces grew old batch by batch, and even their children were attracted by Tang civilization. Therefore, it finally ushered in the era of Daejong (817-830) in the 9th century.

  The Balhae State in the era of Dae Jo-young reached its peak in all aspects and was called "Haedong-seonguk". At one time, the "Sanggyeong-dongcheonbu" here and Chang'an City on the west side of the Chinese map stood together as the two major cultural centers of Asia.

  At first glance, the danger within Bohai has been eliminated. Then turn around and take a look at the external dangers.

  The surrounding tribes, still not rid of their nomadic habits, thus formed a huge contrast with the Balhae state. The contrast brought admiration and attachment, but behind the admiration and attachment, there was strong jealousy and hatred. In the early 9th century, the Balhae state was majestic, but surrounding it were increasingly flashing eyes. Its crowded streets were too stimulating for those horse hooves that yearned for human smoke, its illustrious reputation was too provocative for those mountain people who aspired to success, and its wealth of treasures was too attractive for those riders with thin backpacks.

  So that day finally arrived. It came unexpectedly, yet it was inevitable. Only a hundred years had passed since the reign of Dae In-suu, in 926 AD, the Balhae state was suddenly destroyed by the Khitan.

  People will ask: As the suzerain of Bohai State, why didn't the Tang Dynasty lend a helping hand?

  The answer is: Nineteen years ago, the Tang Dynasty had already perished before the destruction of Balhae.

  In fact, even if the Tang Dynasty had not perished, it would have been of no help. After "An Shi Rebellion", the momentum was lost, and the aristocratic families were standing tall, how could they still control an autonomous vassal state in Northeast Asia?

  Four

  In human history, every highly civilized castle was conquered and the aftermath was always particularly tragic.

  For the victors knew that within the castle walls, a civilization far superior to their own had taken shape. Once conquered, they could not control it, nor assimilate into it, nor transform it; except for destruction, there was no other way.

  The Khitan people riding horses looked around, they found that not only the eyes and faces of the citizens were so cold, but even the city bricks and street stones were resisting. A vengeful atmosphere permeated everywhere, it couldn't be caught or driven away.

  They then ordered after plundering the city: evacuate the capital, move the whole nation south, and then set fire to the entire city.

  We are now unable to describe the great fire, unable to imagine the terrible scene after a major Asian city was thrown into the sea of flames, and even more unable to guess the emotions and expressions of countless Bohai people who were forced to flee south with their children when they looked back at the great fire.

  I remember local archaeological workers telling me that when excavating the site, they always saw some bricks, tiles and stones that would not melt being burned together, and large road stones were also fractured everywhere due to being roasted by fire.

  The fire burned for an unknown amount of time. The water in the eight-treasured agate well that I had looked into must have boiled and then dried up quickly. Then, when everything still smelled of smoke, a heavy snowfall covered everything again.

  No wonder, when I first came to inspect and stuck my head out of the well, what I saw was a thousand-year-old cold eye that had seen everything.

  Actually, the Khitan people who came and went in a hurry were also opening up their own history. When I was studying the Northern Wei Dynasty, I paid attention to them when they were nomadic on the upper reaches of the Liao River. The Tang Dynasty had also hastily established the "Songmo Dufu" for them, but after the fall of the Tang Dynasty, Abaoji unified the Khitan and declared himself emperor. Therefore, when they came to attack the Bohai State, it was still a very "new" regime. Later, they changed their name to Liao and had dealings with the Five Dynasties and Northern Song, also learning many things from Han culture, and there were not a few stories of friendship and enmity. In 1125 AD, they were destroyed by the Jin Dynasty.

  They were destroyed two hundred years after they had destroyed Balhae.

  As for the Jin Dynasty, which destroyed them, it was even shorter-lived, existing for only 120 years. The Jin Dynasty was destroyed by the Mongols and Southern Song. Of course, everyone knows that later the Southern Song was also destroyed by the Mongols.

  ……

  So many times of destruction, each time, can't be without a raging fire? Can't be without that one mouthful of boiling and then drying up the old well, the ancient well, the abandoned well?

  Underground there is always a source of water, and they all gradually have ripples. But when I take a look, it's the same as what I saw at the Bohai State ruins - cold eyes, always cold eyes.

  I've been wondering, those several Qing dynasty exiles who looked like beggars but were actually scholars, did they see that abandoned well when they stopped to rest that day? Probably not. But what about the old man who came back twice, did he see it or not?

  If they saw the old well and the cold eyes, I think they would definitely fall into deep thought. They are not unfamiliar with that piece of history, but they must also be deeply shocked by the scene where a famous city is left with only a few stone materials and an abandoned well. I believe that after being shocked, they will be more optimistic about their own experiences. In front of such ruins, the right and wrong of the imperial examination case, the miserable death of loved ones, have all become tiny dust in the folds of history.

  History is indifferent, in most cases it does not speak of right or wrong, nor does it speak of emotions. More indifferent than history is nature; the place where these old men went to gather firewood was a volcanic crater. In the face of this volcanic crater, the scale of time becomes even more astonishing. By comparison, the rise and fall of dynasties are measured in hundreds of years, while the activity of volcanoes is measured in tens of thousands of years.

  In fact, the volcano is also an abandoned well. Its cold eyes make even the earth shudder with fear.

  Of course, this was beyond the knowledge of those few scholars in exile.