The Story
The legend behind the Jianghu—and the map that could make a hero.
The tale of the martial world is rooted in ancient Chinese legend—a time of unending war, when heroes fought to become first under heaven. That struggle began with a single map: the Kingdom Territory Map, said to grant whoever followed it the power to unite the realm and claim the title of hero.
The Nine Sacred Urns
In the beginning, Pan Gu divided the world into the realm of the gods and the realm of mortals. Even so, strange creatures brought chaos to the human realm— until Da Yu forged the Nine Sacred Urns to preserve the essence of humanity and protect the mortal world. Later, the Shang and Zhou dynasties arose. The Zhou emperor chose to melt the urns down into coins. That act plunged the land into chaos and fragmentation once more.
Five or six centuries passed. Emperor Qin gathered all the sacred urns and became their sole master and the sole ruler of the land. From then on the urns stood as ancestral legacy and symbol of imperial authority—for over eight hundred years, until they were destroyed in war when the Qin fell to the Tang.
Chaos, invasion, and the map
Under the Tang, the realm fell into chaos again. War raged as factions sought control; invaders such as the Liao seized sixteen provinces, and the people suffered the loss of their land. Cai Yong, then ruler of Zhou, took pity on the people. He prayed for peace and offered his own life. The gods heard his prayer and gave him the Kingdom Territory Map.
Cai Yong followed the map’s guidance. With the help of Zhao Kuangyi he swiftly unified the north. Not long after, Cai Yong died—and on his deathbed he passed the map’s secret to Zhao Kuangyi. But Zhao Kuangyi was not to be trusted. He used the map to make pacts with other powers, rebelled, and founded his own dynasty: the Song. The people and the gods were enraged. The map shattered into fragments and scattered on the wind, lost even as Zhao Kuangyi clung to power.
Knowing he had lost the sacred object and plunged the world into chaos again, Zhao could not defend his claim. He turned to treachery—seizing power from the very factions that had helped him rise—and sent his agents to hunt for the lost fragments of the map.
The fragments and the Jianghu
Years later Zhao Kuangyi died. He named his brother Zhao Defang as his successor. By then rumours of the map’s fragments had spread across the realm. The powerful fought over the land; the country was plunged into chaos once more. That chaos never truly ended—it became the world we know: the Jianghu, where sects and wanderers still vie for power, and where the legend of the map and the urns lives on in every season.