The Song army has crisscrossed China, conquering one kingdom after another; the Southern Tang kingdom falls in 975.

Within two decades, the Song state has been able to incorporate the southern kingdoms into its realm, unifying nearly all of traditional Chinese lands.

Southern Tang poet-king Li Yu, reportedly virtuous and skilled in letters, calligraphy, and painting, has passed his idyllic life in his palace in Nanjing (Nanking), reading Buddhist texts, drinking with his officials, and watching dancing girls.

Following his kingdom’s defeat by the Song in 975, he is imprisoned in the Song capital, and begins writing a series of lyrically beautiful poems in the ci style (forty-five of which survive) expressing his deep longing for the life that could no longer be.