The Northern Song had Western Hunan, Hongzhou, Western Xia, and the Khitan.
Western Xia had the Yellow River Grand Sacrifice, primitive worship, and an escaped "immortal."
The Khitan had the fall of the Divine Kingdom and a flourishing culture of Buddhist worship.
All one could say was that everyone had a bright future ahead.
But there was one important point.
Did the Great Song really still need some sorcerer to wreak havoc on it?
And while Hongzhou's problems might have had something to do with Shuzhong, shamanic practices had already been widespread in Hongzhou itself.
Whatever had come from Shuzhong was merely a single wave in an ocean.
The Great Song's current emperor, Emperor Renzong of Song, was called Renzong, the Benevolent Ancestor, and he did indeed treat the scholar-officials well. But the Northern Song had neither experience with nor anything but fear of the Yellow River's floods and breached dikes, resulting in widespread breaches throughout the river basin and untold suffering.
Rebellions erupted constantly, and none of the borders were at peace.
Even more frightening were the princes who kept dying young.
What frightened the emperor was precisely those princes who kept dying young.
Here was an emperor whose daughters lived while his sons died. His children kept dying after birth, leaving him no choice but to bring Zhao Yunrang's son, Zhao Shu, into the palace as his heir.
Emperor Renzong of Song could not let it go. He even suspected that someone had murdered his children.
Faced with an emperor who grew mentally unstable in his later years,
as the heir to the throne,
Zhao Shu was all but driven mad by the torment.
He might indeed have developed a mental illness.
Less than sixty years after Emperor Renzong of Song's death came the Jingkang Humiliation.
Did the