Fearing being killed for his overwhelming merits, the empress decided to marry him.

The family rarely reunited in the capital. Seeing the haggard faces of his concubines and daughters, Zhao Ji felt extremely sad.

He held the hand of one of his beloved concubines and said, "Consort Rong, you have also suffered."

Upon hearing this, Wang Wanrong immediately turned her head away, covered her face, and wept.

The other women also had tears in their eyes.

This arduous journey subjected these pampered members of the royal family to countless humiliations and hardships.

However, neither Zhao Ji nor his son, nor the princesses and concubines, knew that true humiliation awaited them.

"Stop dawdling, let's go!"

After handing over the roster to the Jin officials outside the city gate, the Jin soldiers escorting them immediately cracked their whips in the air and, in a rough and gruff voice, led them toward the Jin palace.

Upon entering the palace gates, the entire family of over sixty people were led into a room.

Then, the Jurchens carried several baskets of mourning clothes and threw them in front of them.

"Hurry up and put it on!"

Zhao Ji was taken aback and couldn't help but ask, "These are mourning clothes for sacrificial rites, why...why should I wear them?"

"You still dare to be tough?"

Upon hearing this, the Jin man rushed forward, grabbed Zhao Ji by the collar, and slapped him twice across the face, knocking him to the ground.

"Father!"

"Don't hit my father!"

Zhao Huan and his two concubines immediately stood in front of Zhao Ji.

"Don't move!"

At this moment, Emperor Huizong, unusually lucid, immediately stopped his relatives from clashing with the Jurchens.

Through his experiences, Zhao Ji realized his current identity; he was no longer the high and mighty emperor he once was.

The Jurchens didn't care at all whether they were emperors of the Song Dynasty. If Wanyan Lie hadn't ordered that their lives be spared, they would have ended up like the common people.

"Let's change, put them on first and then talk about it."

Zhao Ji muttered something, got up, took a mourning garment from the basket, and put it on.

Seeing this, the other concubines and their children also quietly sobbed and changed into mourning clothes.

"Hey Hey……"

Seeing the once-noble Song imperial family now dressed in mourning, the Jurchens monitoring them couldn't help but let out a sarcastic laugh.

After donning mourning clothes, Zhao Ji, Zhao Huan, and other members of the royal family, escorted by Jin soldiers, walked towards a temple tower in the western part of the palace.

Along the way, they also encountered officials being escorted to the capital, including Xue Congli and Ye Fan.

After the emperor and his ministers met, they couldn't help but cry again.

After inquiring, Zhao Huan learned that Jiang Yuhan and Lai Ba had frozen to death on their way to and from the capital.

Zhao Huan was numb to the deaths of the two men.

I can barely take care of myself now, how can I have time to care about others?

After the system left, Ye Fan's entire demeanor was like that of a completely different person.

After Langyue abandoned him, Ouyang Xuanyi and Li Wan'er no longer had the same infatuation with him. In order to survive, they were willing to become military prostitutes in the army.

In response, Ye Fan was heartbroken and could no longer muster any willpower. He could only take things one step at a time and prioritize preserving his own life.

Before long, the group of people dressed in mourning clothes were brought to the front of the Imperial Ancestral Temple.

The ancestral temple enshrines Wanyan Wugu, the founder of the Jin dynasty.

"kneel!"

With a deep shout from a Jin official, Zhao Ji and his sons were forced to kneel before the ancestral temple of the enemy state.

At this moment, Wanyan Lie, accompanied by several princes, strolled to the stone tablet of Wanyan Wugu and knelt down to worship.

"Your Majesty the Great Ancestor of the Jin Dynasty, your unfilial descendant Wanyan Lie, today brings this group of treacherous Song royals to show his filial piety."

The Song Dynasty has fallen, and our Great Jin Dynasty now possesses vast lands. If you have a spirit in the afterlife, you can rest in peace now, can't you?

After the funeral rites were completed, Wanyan Lie stood up, looked at Zhao Ji and his son Zhao Huan, and then glanced at his ministers, and couldn't help but sneer.

"By royal decree, effective immediately, Zhao Ji and his son Zhao Huan are hereby granted the surname Wanyan, the royal surname of my Great Jin Dynasty! Zhao Huan is stripped of his throne as Emperor of the Great Song Dynasty and shall forever be a slave of my Wanyan family!"

After saying this, Wanyan Lie ignored the shocked looks of Zhao Ji and his son, turned around and went back to the Golden Palace.

Before leaving, Wanyan Zongbi gave a meaningful look to the Zhao royal family members who were kneeling on the ground, trembling...

When Zhao Ji heard that his surname had been changed, he felt as if his heart was being torn apart.

"I have failed my ancestors of the Song Dynasty!"

"Father, what does this mean?"

"My son, from this day forward, even if we die, we will never be able to enter the temples of the Great Song Dynasty."

"Father!"

Immediately, the emperor, his ministers, and his concubines burst into tears again.

It seems that now, all they can do is cry.

But soon, they were brutally driven away by the Jurchens and headed towards the Golden Palace.

……

When the group, exhausted after changing out of their mourning clothes, stepped into the Golden Palace, they found Wanyan Lie and his ministers looking at them with the same eyes they would use to look at livestock.

Ye Fan felt a chill run down his spine. Before he could react, Yan Gan shouted, "Kneel down!"

After Zhao Ji and his son Zhao Huan took the lead in kneeling down, the other officials and relatives also knelt down.

Wanyan Lie glanced at Zhao Ji and Zhao Huan kneeling at his feet and couldn't help but sneer: "With such incompetent rulers as you in the Song Dynasty, it would be an injustice if the country didn't perish!"

Look at yourselves! Do you have even a trace of the bearing of a ruler?

"Hahaha……"

Wanyan Lie's words quickly drew laughter from the surrounding Jurchens.

Zhao Huan was already terrified and at a loss, but Zhao Ji suppressed his fear and raised his head to clasp his hands in greeting to Wanyan Lie.

"Your Majesty, may we return south? If Your Majesty is willing to let us return south, the Great Song Dynasty is willing to acknowledge the Great Jin Dynasty as our parent country."

From now on, the annual tribute and wealth will be doubled; please, Your Majesty, show leniency.”

Wanyan Lie slammed his hand on the throne: "Let you go back? You two tyrants actually have the nerve to make this request to me?"

I had no desire to provoke conflict with your Song Kingdom in recent years, but it was you who provoked us, leading to all of this.

"Now that you are prisoners, what right do you have to make demands of me?"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Ji's heart sank to the bottom.

Wanyan Lie continued, "Look at you all, spending your days playing with strange stones and antiques, yet you know nothing of the suffering of the people outside Bianjing who are starving."

One who is mentally unstable and fickle, who treats my Jurchens as mere tricks.

And you so-called pillars of the Song Dynasty, each and every one of you is corrupt, lawless, and oppressive to the people, utterly lacking any sense of responsibility as officials.

It's a cruel joke of fate that people like you could be the rulers and ministers of the Song Dynasty.

"Today, I will teach you a lesson on behalf of the people of your Great Song Dynasty! Guards, perform the traditional Jin Dynasty ritual of leading a sheep for this group of incompetent rulers and ministers!"

"roar~"

As soon as he finished speaking, thunderous cheers erupted in the hall.

Before Zhao Huan and Zhao Ji could react, a group of Jurchen warriors rushed up with savage smiles and stripped them naked.

Princesses and concubines such as Zhao Jinnu, Wang Wanrong, and Consort Wei were not spared either; no matter how much they struggled and cried, their clothes were all torn apart.

In an instant, a strange scene unfolded in the Golden Palace, with the gleeful laughter of the Golden figures everywhere.

Looking at it from Wanyan Lie's perspective, it's like watching a bunch of maggots huddled together and wriggling.

The next moment, pieces of skinned sheepskin were thrown onto the hall.

"Put them on!"

When the bloody sheepskin was draped over Ye Fan's body, his mind went completely blank.

"Why did this happen? Why..."

"Why have I, Ye Fan, fallen to this state?"