The city of Jinling, later hailed as the City of Golden Authority, was not born in prosperity but in blood, marsh, and necessity. Its true origins stretch back to a time before dynasties carried the Mandate of Heaven, before the Murim world was structured into great sects and imperial courts. The Yangtze basin was a contested prize, a river of life that could feed millions and a highway that could carry armies deep into the south. Whoever held its bends held destiny in their grasp.
Where Jinling now rises in crimson stone and golden tile, there once stretched endless marshland. Villages of reed-thatched huts dotted the waterways, their people fishers, farmers, and ferrymen who bowed to whichever warlord sent raiders downriver that year. The Yangtze’s bend here was treacherous, riddled with whirlpools and hidden sandbars, and for generations it was considered unlucky land. Yet to a cunning eye, those same waters offered defense, choke points, and a staging ground for fleets.
The first fortress was built not by emperors, but by exiles. After northern cavalry shattered the southern kingdoms in a storm of iron and hooves, a defeated noble house fled across the river and raised earthworks upon the marsh. Mud walls, timber palisades, and hastily dug canals held back horsemen who had never mastered the river’s fury. Refugees gathered there, and for a time, the fortress became a haven for the rootless and the desperate. Even then, Jinling’s earliest character was clear: a city of survival, of authority carved by those who seized the high ground above chaos.
As generations passed, rulers recognized the strategic genius of the site. Grain from upriver could be stored here before being sent to feed southern capitals. Iron from mountain forges could be shipped to arm entire legions. Slowly, the mud walls became stone ramparts, and the fortress became a city. By the time of the Southern Dynasties, Jinling was no longer a mere military holdfast but a jewel of trade and administration.
Here, ministers of the fledgling dynasties wrote laws that sought to bring order to fractured lands. Here, court Daoists traced the flow of dragon veins beneath the earth and declared that Jinling was touched by Heaven’s design. Legends claim the founding emperor of the southern line walked barefoot upon the marsh and felt the pulse of the earth beneath him, declaring: “This is where the Dragon of the South shall coil.” From that moment, Jinling was bound not only by stone and soldiers, but by myth.
Centuries later, when the Ming Dynasty seized power through blade and decree, Jinling was chosen as their southern capital. Unlike older cities that grew wild with merchant quarters and sect lodges, Jinling was rebuilt with a single purpose: to embody authority itself. The streets were laid in strict order, wide avenues radiating from the palace like the spokes of a wheel. All roads led to the Emperor, both literally and symbolically. No district was allowed to grow without approval. No alley bent unless designed to funnel movement toward the throne.
The Ming emperors saw Jinling not only as a fortress or market but as a stage upon which the performance of power would be endlessly repeated. Crimson walls, gilded roofs, and towering gates proclaimed authority as loudly as any proclamation. Tribute flowed in from conquered provinces: jade, silks, scrolls, relics of defeated sects. Each was displayed in Jinling’s halls to remind subjects that all things, whether wealth or wisdom, ultimately bowed before the Son of Heaven.
Jinling’s identity crystallized in this period. Other cities were homes, trading hubs, or sanctuaries of the Murim world. Jinling was none of these. It was, and remains, the throne incarnate. A common saying took root among the people:
“To walk the streets of Jinling is to walk upon the Emperor’s palm.”
Every stone was laid to impress, every gate to intimidate, every shrine to reinforce the Mandate of Heaven. Eunuchs whispered within the palace halls, ministers plotted within their gilded chambers, and generals sharpened their ambitions while marching through parade grounds. Yet beneath the spectacle, shadows grew — factions vying for influence, sects maneuvering for imperial favor, and hidden clans whispering rebellion.
Though the palace claimed supremacy, the Murim world could not be ignored. Martial heroes passed through Jinling in every age, their presence both boon and threat. Early emperors courted sects with titles and rewards, binding them to imperial service. The Wudang were once honored with jade plaques of recognition; Shaolin monks were invited to display their arts before court audiences; Tangmen assassins were both feared and discreetly employed by eunuchs who wished rivals silenced.
But where other cities allowed sect influence to thrive openly, Jinling enforced boundaries. Here, martial strength was tolerated only so long as it bent to the Emperor’s will. From the earliest days, Jinling became the stage upon which Murim sects were tested. To defy order was to vanish into the prisons beneath the palace. To win favor was to be showered with gold yet shackled in obligation. Thus, Jinling taught the martial world a lesson still remembered: in the capital, even heroes kneel.
Out of this crucible of power and paranoia, two forces emerged whose roots twine inseparably with Jinling’s history. The Rootless Clan, descendants of dispossessed nobles and failed candidates of the imperial exams, turned their rejection into strength. They became masters of disguise, infiltration, and survival without ties, embodying the city’s forgotten underclass. Where the palace shone with gold, they thrived in the shadows beneath.
In response, the emperors formalized the Royal Guards — black-armored enforcers whose loyalty was absolute. More than soldiers, they were symbols of imperial terror. Their origin lies not in battlefield necessity but in political paranoia; for emperors learned quickly that steel in the shadows was as vital as armies on the walls. From their inception, the Royal Guards and the Rootless Clan became two halves of Jinling’s soul: authority and rebellion, chain and knife, mask and shadow.
Thus, the city’s foundation is not merely brick and mortar, but myth and blood. Jinling was not born to be lived in, but to be ruled from. It is a city built on the bones of marshland peasants, the ambition of dynasties, the whispers of geomancers, and the eternal struggle between sect freedom and imperial control.
To this day, the founding spirit of Jinling remains unchanged. Where other cities may rise and fall, Jinling endures as the eternal stage of empire. To set foot within its walls is to enter the dragon’s coil, to feel the weight of centuries pressing down, and to know that in Jinling, every triumph, betrayal, or rebellion is measured not by one’s own will, but by the unblinking gaze of the throne.