Bianliang City, Genyue
To the ancient city of Bianliang, steeped in centuries of history, the royal garden known as "Genyue" was but a fledgling novelty, a recent marvel sprawling across a vast expanse of land.
Posterity may forget the name Genyue, yet anyone familiar with Water Margin would recall the infamous Huashi Gang—a term shrouded in foreboding, long entwined with the downfall of the Northern Song dynasty. It is said that early in his reign, Emperor Huizong, lacking an heir, was advised by a Daoist priest: "In the northeast corner of the capital lies a geomantically auspicious site. Raise its elevation, and sons shall be born in abundance."
On its face, a modest pagoda or artificial hill would have sufficed. But Emperor Huizong, ever enamored with grandeur and extravagance, undertook a project of unprecedented scale. The plain surrounding Bianliang stretched for miles, barren of craggy peaks or swift-flowing waters. Yet the emperor, convinced that emperors and deities alike required landscapes of sublime beauty, spared no effort in crafting his vision of paradise.
Rare stones of fantastical form were summoned from every corner of the empire; exquisite flora from the lush south was transplanted with care. Winding balustrades, ornate pavilions, and elegant towers rose day by day, year by year. Over the course of more than a decade, Genyue was transformed into the most exquisite pleasure garden in all of recorded history.
This imperial retreat was nestled east of Jinglong Gate, west of Fengqiu (Anyuan) Gate, north of Donghua Gate, and south of the Jinglong River, encompassing a perimeter of six li and covering approximately 750 mu. Modeled after Phoenix Mountain in Zhejiang, the garden employed masterful techniques of artificial landscaping—layered rocks, piled earth, and crafted vistas—melding poetry and painting into tangible terrain. Cavernous hollows dotted the main hill, Wanshou Mountain (also called Genshan), filled with realgar to ward off serpents and lugan stone believed to gather mist and dispel gloom, conjuring the air of secluded mountain groves.
Such extravagance might still have been within reach of the empire's coffers—if not for Huizong's obsession with Taihu stones. These peculiar rocks, riddled with holes and prized for their elegance, were transported from distant Jiangnan to the capital. The logistics defied reason: the cost in manpower, resources, and treasury was staggering.
To acquire rare blossoms and curious rocks, a special bureau, the Yingfengju, was established in Suzhou, tasked with sourcing treasures from Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Thus began the era of the "Flower-and-Stone Tribute"—every ten boats dispatched to the capital constituted one gang. It was the very embodiment of indulgence corrupting the soul.
At first, the tributes were few and modest. But Emperor Huizong's discerning eye demanded only the most refined Taihu stones and the most delicate exotic flowers. In return, those who delivered such wonders received lavish rewards and rapid promotion. These absurd decrees, once issued, became silent mandates that stirred the empire into turmoil.
A book once claimed that beneath every railroad tie in America lies the body of an Irish laborer. We might likewise assert: upon every stone in Genyue rests a tale of blood and tears from the people of Song.
In search of botanical marvels and mineral rarities, local officials and their troops scoured mountains and ravines. No household, no matter how humble, was spared—if a stone or tree seemed valuable, it was marked as imperial property, instantly gaining a hundredfold in worth. The owners, under threat of disrespecting the throne, were compelled to guard it with their lives. A single misstep could spell disaster.
Come shipping time, walls were torn down and houses destroyed to carefully extract the "treasures." Many families were ruined—selling sons and daughters, fleeing destitution. Official records merely state, "Countless households were impoverished," without explaining the cause. But the truth lay in the term "imperial property," and the terror of being charged with great disrespect—one of the ten most grievous crimes. The prudent paid bribes to avoid calamity; the stubborn were crushed. Such was the brutal efficiency of imperial greed.
The Taihu stones were no trifles. In the fifth year of Xuanhe, one boulder, towering several zhang high, required over a thousand laborers, who diverted rivers, broke bridges, and dismantled sluices to deliver it to the capital. Some stones were so massive that the city gates of Bianliang had to be dismantled to allow them passage—rivaling the legend of the Trojan Horse.
Given the technological limits of the day, such mammoth stones could only be transported via river, testing the limits of inland navigation. One shudders to imagine the shipwrecks, the drowned, the shattered lives. The spectacle of sails crowding the canal must have rivaled the imperial flotilla of Emperor Yang of Sui—but at the cost of Jiangnan's suffering. The rebellion of Fang La, met with overwhelming support, mirrored the collapse of the Sui under widespread revolt.
Historians have long viewed the Jurchen invaders from the north and Fang La's southern rebellion as twin calamities that sealed the Northern Song's fate. And the immediate spark for Fang La's revolt was none other than the infamous Flower-and-Stone Tribute.
In this light, Emperor Huizong's construction of Genyue is as infamous as Emperor Yang's Grand Canal—a testament to folly. At least the canal served posterity, linking north and south for centuries to come. Genyue, by contrast, contributed not a whit to the nation's prosperity.
Thus, when the mystic Guo Jing made his demand, the newly "empowered" Emperor Qinzong readily penned an edict: the entire Genyue would be his to plunder—on the condition that he could repel the Jurchen siege. After all, if the enemy breached the city, the garden would become nothing more than a pasture for their horses. So let Guo Jing take what he pleased.
…
Though he had seen the splendors of West Lake, wandered the classical gardens of Suzhou, and marveled at the Summer Palace, Versailles, and the Taj Mahal in travel films, Wang Qiu was still utterly awestruck upon first stepping into Genyue.
—The architecture: pavilions, halls, and galleries; the terrain: peaks, caves, and cliffs; the waters: streams, waterfalls, and pools. Great trees, wild grasses, beasts and birds—too many wonders to name. Enclosed on all sides, one felt transported to a secret valley among layered mountains, forgetting entirely the broad plains of the Bianliang basin. The mundane world fell away, and a soaring ambition rose from the soul...
In comparison, the fabled Grand View Garden of Dream of the Red Chamber, so delicate in prose, now seemed but a narrow, affected imitation.
Alas, Wang Qiu had not come to admire the serene beauty of ancient Chinese gardens, but to dismantle it for debt repayment—to "burn zither and boil crane," scavenging treasures for Doraemon's pawn machine.
Indeed, it felt uncomfortably like the Anglo-French sacking of the Summer Palace.
By the time of the second siege of Bianliang, Genyue was already ravaged. Food stores dwindled, and all resources had to be repurposed. Stones and wood from the garden were harvested for defense. Emperor Qinzong ordered the slaughter of deer and exotic birds once bred for leisure, turning them into rations. Even the precious Taihu stones, hauled at great cost from the south, were ground into catapult projectiles.
As the winter chill deepened and fuel ran short, soldiers tore down pavilions, splitting rare woods into firewood. Watching priceless rosewood and huanghuali go up in smoke, Wang Qiu and Guo Jing cursed the reckless destruction.
Then they took matters into their own hands.
Evicting the looting soldiers, they occupied the remaining halls, and—using Doraemon's futuristic tools—proceeded to demolish the garden themselves. With astonishing speed, they flattened entire scenic spots, stripping carved windows, beams, tables, jade artifacts, calligraphy, and paintings, feeding it all into the pawn machine…
Unsurprisingly, Doraemon's sanctioned demolition crew worked far more efficiently than the Imperial Guard scavengers.
Regrettably, the spoils yielded far less than expected.
"…Persian glass wine cup… only 900 yen? Sigh, makes sense. Glass is cheap in the future, and this cup still looks brand new—not much of an antique. Official kiln lotus basin, 20,000 yen… Woodblock books, 3,000… Silk sachet, 1,000… Handwritten calligraphy by Emperor Huizong and Cai Jing, 10,000—pawn machine flagged it as a forgery…"
Watching heap after heap vanish into the machine, only for a trickle of yen to emerge, Wang Qiu felt deflated.
Antiques derive value from time's touch, the weight of history. Even the finest Song-dynasty wares—Huizong's calligraphy, freshly fired porcelain—could not command true worth without the patina of centuries. Unless they could unearth artifacts from even earlier eras…
Had they been selling to modern pawnbrokers, Doraemon could have used his time-aging tricks—after all, this blue cat once forged a fossilized umbrella. But the automatic pawn machine, itself a future device, was immune to such deceptions.
And pawnbrokers, regardless of era, are notoriously ruthless in undervaluing goods.
Of course, Genyue still held immense treasures. Timber alone—rosewood, huanghuali, red sandalwood, golden nanmu—could fetch millions of yen per ton. Hainan huanghuali, nearing extinction by the 21st century, had long since been banned from harvest. Even small branches were sold as medicine. Scarcity only heightened value.
More precious still was the agarwood—chenxiang—discovered in Genyue's grandest halls. This resinous wood, too rare to use structurally even in ancient times, was prized as incense and ornament. Since the Han and Qin dynasties, nobility had used it to perfume their robes. By the Song, refined scholars had elevated "the Four Elegant Arts"—incense appreciation, tea contests, gardening, and painting—spurring a cultural demand for top-grade agarwood. So prized was it that sayings arose: "An ounce of agarwood equals an ounce of gold," and "A single sliver of Champa agarwood is worth ten thousand coins." In the Ming era: "An inch of agarwood, an inch of gold."
Gold, by volume, is far denser than wood—so the comparison reveals just how precious this fragrant treasure was. Only in a royal garden like Genyue could so much be found. Wang Qiu, unable to resist the allure of riches, quietly tucked a few pieces into his personal space.
Guo Jing, by contrast, remained admirably restrained. Not a single bauble did he take.
Still, not every building in Genyue used luxury woods. Lesser structures made use of ginkgo, paulownia, teak, pine, and oak. But their sheer quantity meant that once dismantled and processed, they too brought in a handsome sum.
Among the valuables unearthed by Wang Qiu and his companions were not only rare woods, but also stones like Tianhuang and Jixue—relatively unremarkable in the Song, yet priceless in modern times. As imperial tributes, these were often top-grade specimens: translucent as frozen honey, radiant, and fine-grained...
[Continued upon request]