"…The Song and Jin dynasties divided their realms along the Yellow River. The Song court ceded all lands east of the river and in Hebei, pushing the frontier to the very outskirts of Bianliang. On top of this, they agreed to pay the Jin five million strings of cash in military reparations, deliver half a million bushels of grain and fodder, offer a tribute of one hundred thousand bolts of silk from the South, and present nine hundred court beauties. And thereafter, a yearly tribute of three million strings? Is this not sheer disgrace?"
In the once-elegant Genyue Imperial Garden—now reduced to rubble like a demolished construction site—only a single intact courtyard remained. Within it, Wang Qiu listened with evident scorn as Guo Jing relayed the Jin envoy's outrageous terms.
"…And to think there are officials within the court who support such a humiliating compromise?"
"The leader of the appeasement faction, Geng Nanzhong, has already roused a large number of courtiers," Guo Jing replied with a sigh. "They are pressuring the emperor and the hawkish ministers to accept peace. Even the citizens of Bianliang are divided—on the one hand, they thirst for vengeance; on the other, they long for an end to the chaos…"
"Although the hawks like He Su remain resolute, their resistance is rapidly faltering," he added, a tinge of helplessness in his voice.
"Peace! Peace!" Wang Qiu sneered, his tone sharp with contempt. "How many times have the Jin reneged on treaties? And yet the Song scholar-officials never seem to learn."
Listening to Guo Jing recount the cowardice and disgrace of the Song officials, Wang Qiu was overcome with a sense of hopelessness. These people were utterly beyond saving.
"In truth, given the psychological makeup of the Northern Song rulers and ministers, their guiding principle has always been: better a quiet disgrace than a turbulent glory. To say they are ignorant of the treacherous nature of the Jurchens would be underestimating them. It's not ignorance—it's fear. They've been beaten too many times by their northern neighbors. Better to delude themselves into believing that wolves won't eat rabbits, than to summon the courage to fight."
Guo Jing shrugged disdainfully.
"Yet when it comes to suppressing the generals who dare advocate resistance, they show remarkable zeal."
—For over a century now, the Song gentry had grown fat on peace and prosperity. Accustomed to paying "protection money" to northern invaders, they had neither the will nor the stomach for war—let alone the ambition to win one. In this dynasty of cowards, courage was the rarest virtue of all.
Thus, when the Jin envoy arrived, the appeasement faction within the court quickly submitted memorials urging the emperor to sue for peace and bring the war to a close.
At the same time, the hawks, though impassioned in their denunciations of surrender as betrayal, could not entirely mask the uncertainty and fear that gnawed at their hearts.
—After over a year of brutal warfare, the treasury was depleted. The elite Western Army had been wiped off the face of the earth. The next-best forces—the Hebei and capital garrisons—were nearly annihilated. All that remained within Bianliang were scattered remnants. The southern imperial troops were few in number and laughably weak. The empire's standing army was all but gone, leaving only militia and peasant volunteers to hold the line against the Jin.
In the eyes of the court officials, the Song no longer had the means to continue the war—even if it wished to.
Within a thousand li of the capital, there was no longer a single dependable force to mobilize. Even Luoyang, the crucial western capital, had already fallen to a flanking force under Wanyan Lou-shi, cutting off any hope of reinforcements from the west. The Central Plains had become the Jurchens' playground. If the court did not grovel and sue for peace, what other choice remained?
—Terrified and broken in spirit, the Song rulers had never even considered rallying the masses and waging a prolonged war to exhaust the enemy.
"…Professor Guo, from our standpoint, we must under no circumstances allow this treaty to go through," Wang Qiu said gravely, glancing at the Book of Transmigration in his hands.
"First, we need to drastically alter the course of history in order to earn sufficient reward points to get you out of this world. The Jin army is our primary target for harvesting points—so they must not be allowed to retreat unscathed as they did in history. We must annihilate them. Especially figures like Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Zongwang—those men are marked for death. Our estimates suggest each of them is worth between 500 and 3,000 points. We must not let them slip away."
"Secondly, you know the character of the Song officials better than we do. They lack the courage to stand and fight, yet their talent for betrayal and backstabbing is second to none. While the Jin surround the capital and the dynasty teeters on the brink, the court may rely on you for now. But should peace be made and the Jin army retreat—do you truly believe your fate will be any better than Yue Fei's?"
—In the Song dynasty, military success was no shield. Defeat warranted punishment, but victory often brought false accusations.
Throughout Song history, a fierce struggle existed between civil and military officials. The scholar-gentry held overwhelming dominance and would stop at nothing to maintain it. During wartime, when power naturally tilted toward the generals, the literati would often ally across factional lines—hawks and doves alike—to sabotage military men, whether by giving disastrous orders or even secretly colluding with the enemy. They cared nothing for the nation's survival—only for their own status.
The Song scholar-officials detested war not out of love for peace, but because war elevated the military and undermined their supremacy. Thus, their first response to invasion was always to appease—groveling, paying bribes, offering concubines—anything but empowering their own generals. Only when the enemy's demands became untenable would they fight—and usually lose.
Even during the final battle at Yashan, when the Southern Song perished, the scholar-bureaucrats never stopped sabotaging their generals. They meddled until the bitter end, when over 100,000 people chose to leap into the sea.
As for Guo Jing, though hailed as the "True Man Who Protects the Realm," he was not beyond suspicion. He had once served in the imperial guard, and now commanded the newly formed "Six Jia Divine Army." In the eyes of the gentry, that was enough to brand him a military man—a threat. For now, they sang his praises out of necessity. But the moment the Jin army withdrew, he would be cast aside like a worn-out mule.
"…Yes, yes, I know all that. But what am I supposed to do? Lead my 7,777 Six Jia soldiers out of the city to confront the enemy head-on?"
Guo Jing gave a bitter smile. "That rabble wouldn't last a single exchange…"
"Don't worry," Wang Qiu said, patting his chest with confidence. "If we can turn the Song emperor into a superhero, we can certainly make your troops strong enough to smash the Jurchen cavalry. We just need to empower your men and weaken the enemy—and to do that, we'll need a little help from our friend, Doraemon."
With that, Wang Qiu took a peculiar object from Doraemon's paw—a device shaped like a bird's beak.
"This is the 'Truth-Lies Beak.' Anything you lie about while wearing it becomes true. I plan to use it to make Guo Yaoshi—the traitor who currently guides the Jin—betray them and rejoin the Song. It won't succeed, of course, but it'll sow chaos in their ranks."
"Then we'll use a few 'Earthquake Catfish' to rattle the Jin camps with tremors. And we've got more: Scare Missiles, Ghost Costumes—a whole arsenal of trickery designed to keep them off-balance and sleepless."
Having explained their "total harassment package," Wang Qiu turned to the task he had in mind for Guo Jing.
"Your mission, Professor Guo, is to bolster the emperor's resolve—whatever happens, this shameful peace treaty must never be accepted. You must win his approval to fight first—then we'll handle the rest."
"…But my troops are useless!" Guo Jing protested anxiously.
"Relax," Wang Qiu said with a chuckle, dragging a manga-absorbed Nobita into the room.
"We were never planning to rely on your ragtag bunch. As long as Nobita's on our side, the 150,000 Jin soldiers are mere cannon fodder—he's defeated alien armies with nothing but schoolkids! We're in good hands."
…
Outside, snow fell in a steady drift. Within the palace, the braziers blazed.
A faint scent of sandalwood floated from a bronze incense burner, imbuing the hall with an air of refined dignity.
The Song court, as always, bustled with argument and strife—though today it was tinged with the absurd.
—Looking at the emperor upon his throne, clad in his red-underwear-over-tights superhero suit, Guo Jing struggled to keep a straight face.
Truth be told, the emperor's strange new attire had sparked considerable outrage among the scholar-officials.
"Your Majesty is the paragon of the people—how can you indulge in such indecent frivolity?"
"This demonic sorcerer must be executed for corrupting court decorum!"
For a time, the entire bureaucracy seemed united in atheism and outrage, insisting that the Superman Suit be destroyed.
But Zhao Huan, the timid Emperor Qinzong, had suddenly grown irrationally obstinate—especially when it came to matters of ascension and immortality.
And who could blame him? If you had stumbled upon a miracle and stood on the verge of immortality, only to be harassed by a swarm of stuffy Confucians nitpicking every detail and demanding you surrender your powers—how would you react?
—You'd rather die.
And though the Song literati were arrogant, they hadn't yet grown bold enough to assassinate their emperor.
So, the court put aside matters of defense and survival to engage in a roaring debate over royal fashion.
Dozens of officials went on strike. Hundreds were reprimanded. In the end, the emperor prevailed.
Thus, in the disdainful eyes of his ministers, His Majesty now wore his "indecent" superhero suit proudly and daily.
As for the peace terms proposed by the Jin envoy, a fresh wave of heated debate now swept the court…