Auspicious Cranes


Auspicious Cranes

A depiction of a real event, supposedly, at the beginning of Emperor Huizong's reign, and attributed to his hand.

"Just as the sky grows light, rainbow-hued clouds brush the roof ridge.
Immortal birds, proclaiming good news, suddenly appear with their measured dance.
Soaring windborne, truly companions of the isles of immortality,
Two by two, they show their noble forms."

Huizong was an aesthete, and as the eleventh son, not expected to ascend to power.  But, unluckily, his all ten of his brothers died and left him to rule.

He did not, apparently, make such a good job of it, with the kingdom eventually taken over by the Juchen, and he and his son ending up poor and miserable in Manchuria.  Born in 1082, he reigned for twenty six years (1100-1126) and died in 1035, at the age of 52.

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