The words flowing from the Light Screen ignited a roaring fire in the hearts of everyone gathered in the side hall.
To look upon the vast expanse of the known world and realize that only two empires truly mattered, the Great Han and the Great Rome, was a realization that transcended mere pride.
It was a spiritual awakening.
Zhang Fei's hands itched for the cold grip of his serpent spear as he growled with a mix of indignation and restless energy.
"This Parthia is truly a den of curs! First, they used lies to deceive our Han envoys, and then they had the audacity to launch a proactive strike against the subjects of Rome? Military Advisor Pang was right. These Parthians are terrified of what would happen if the Great Han and the Great Rome ever shook hands!"
Kongming watched Liu Bei's expression carefully.
He saw the somber shadow in his lord's eyes and understood it instantly. Great Rome was plagued by the curse of Parthia, but did the Great Han not suffer from similar internal and external afflictions?
He offered words of comfort, his voice steady and grounding.
"My Lord, the Light Screen has already said that the destiny of the Parthian state is nearing its end. It seems certain that Great Rome survived this particular tribulation. Furthermore, since the envoys during Emperor Huan's reign were genuine, then once you have restored the Han Dynasty, we need only dispatch our own envoys westward to pay a formal visit."
Liu Bei forced himself to shake off his melancholy and offered a strained smile.
"Great Rome has its foreign enemies, and my Han has its internal woes. It seems we are brothers in misfortune after all."
[Lightscreen]
[Because of the war between Rome and Parthia, the land routes were severed. The embassy had no choice but to take to the sea.]
On the screen, the same map reappeared.
A single point of light emerged from the far west, from the heart of the Roman Empire, and began to crawl like a shimmering serpent across the vast blue expanse of the oceans, heading relentlessly toward the East.
[Lightscreen]
[Furthermore, the Kushan Empire to the west of the Han was allied with Parthia at the time, which meant the Silk Road was effectively a dead end for the Roman mission.
In 165 AD, the Roman embassy departed from the Red Sea, crossed the Arabian Sea, and reached India to rest and refit.
By the summer of the following year, the southwest monsoon began to blow across the Indian Ocean. The Roman envoys set sail once more, passing through the Strait of Malacca and traveling north along the coast of the Indochinese Peninsula until they reached Rinan Commandery.
This was the same route later taken by Qin Lun.
Once they entered Han territory, the journey was smooth sailing. They were received in Luoyang by Emperor Huan of Han, Liu Zhi, to whom they presented their gifts.
At the time, Han-controlled Rinan was teeming with wildlife; rhinoceros horns, ivory, and tortoiseshells were hardly rare commodities.
Consequently, the Han scholar-officials were skeptical about the mission's authenticity, suspecting they were merely local merchants posing as Romans.
However, Western historical records tell a different story.
Marcus Aurelius may have been an Emperor, but he was first and foremost a Stoic philosopher.
"A happy life requires little material wealth" is one of the famous maxims left by this ruler.
He valued thought over matter and eschewed luxury to perfect the soul.
The Roman embassy was simply reflecting their master: the Emperor had not approved a lavish budget for gifts.]
"Treating money like dung!"
Zhang Fei shouted, nodding in approval.
"Now that is a man I can respect!"
"A ruler of true clarity and integrity," Kongming noted with deep appreciation. His mind immediately linked this to Emperor Huan, and his respect for the Roman ruler grew as his disappointment in the Han sovereign deepened. "The ninth year of Yanxi... that was the beginning of the Disaster of the Partisan Prohibitions."
Liu Bei's face soured.
He remembered the scathing evaluation from the Memorial on the Expedition: I never fail to lament the reigns of Huan and Ling.
Comparing the Roman philosopher-king to the Han's own failures stung.
While the Romans were perfecting their souls and being praised a thousand years later, Emperor Huan had been busy letting the eunuchs tear the empire apart.
Mi Zhu, however, was focused on something entirely different. To a merchant-official of his caliber, the sea route was a dazzling revelation.
"The 'monsoon' mentioned by the screen must be the 'wind-letter' the sailors speak of. I must record this. The dream of traversing this route myself grows stronger by the second."
Ma Liang, scribbling furiously, added his own commentary.
"The views of this Roman Emperor are remarkably similar to the Military Advisor's own philosophy of living simply to manifest one's will. It is a pity they could not meet. They would have found much to discuss over a jar of wine."
Pang Tong gave a characteristic snort.
"Such high-minded claims are meant for personal discipline, not diplomatic missions. Who sends an embassy with 'simple' gifts and expects to be taken seriously?"
[Lightscreen]
[But as the comments on the screen said earlier, the charm of history lies in its utter unpredictability.
In 166 AD, Rome successfully invaded Parthia and burned its capital, Ctesiphon, to the ground.
But in their moment of victory, the Roman soldiers contracted smallpox. This highly contagious and devastating disease exploded within the Roman legions.
Their morale plummeted, and they were forced to retreat. The spread of smallpox triggered a wave of panic throughout the Roman Empire.
That same year, Germanic tribes from the north began a series of violent raids. Fourteen years later, the warrior-philosopher Aurelius died of the plague while on campaign.
The era of the Five Good Emperors ended, and Rome plunged into the Crisis of the Third Century, a period of Thirty Tyrants.
Four years after Aurelius died of the plague, a man in the far East raised the cry: "The Azure Heaven is dead; the Yellow Heaven shall rise!"
This sounded the death knell for the Eastern Han, and the chaos of the Three Kingdoms officially began.
Almost simultaneously, the two greatest empires in the world fell into internal strife and external catastrophe.
The first and only direct exchange between Han and Rome was severed as quickly as it had begun.]
The hall fell into a heavy, contemplative silence.
The parallels were uncanny.
The same timing of internal collapse.
The same northern threats.
The same curiosity about distant lands.
The same treacherous neighbors.
Even the golden ages of both empires ended at almost the exact same moment.
"Thirty Tyrants?" Zhang Fei muttered, his jaw dropping.
"If I'm hearing this right, that means thirty emperors took the throne through backstabbing and murder. How did the country not vanish from the face of the earth?"
"Perhaps because of..." Kongming accurately recalled a term the screen had mentioned earlier: "The Senate?" The decree banning men from wearing silk came from a Senate, not a single emperor or minister. It seemed the Roman structure of government was fundamentally different from the Han.
As for the Yellow Turban Rebellion, they were all too familiar with it.
They were the survivors and the slayers of that era.
Scholars like Ma Liang and Kongming could lecture for hours on the corruption of the Ten Eunuchs, while Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei had spent their youth hacking through the yellow-scarved masses.
Guan Yu, however, was focused on a more invisible enemy.
"Smallpox... what kind of plague is this?"
"To burn a capital and have victory within one's grasp, only to have the morale of the entire army collapse... what kind of sickness could do that?"
Even the God of War felt a chill run down his spine. As a commander, he feared no blade and complained of no mountain pass.
But a plague that could rot an empire from within?
How do you fight that?
Kongming sensed his tension and offered a calm analysis.
"Yunchang, do not worry. If the disease spreads rapidly, it means it is not an instant death. If it were, it would burn itself out too quickly."
Guan Yu's mind settled slightly.
Still, for the first time since the screen appeared, he felt a desperate urge to reach through time and drag that future narrator into the room.
He wanted to know exactly what this smallpox looked like, how it behaved, and how to kill it before it touched his men.
Zhao Yun added his own tactical assessment.
"If sickness strikes, the protocols are clear: dig pits to burn the infected corpses, sever access to contaminated water, and move the camp to open, elevated ground. After twenty days, the sickness usually fades. This smallpox must have a more sinister nature."
"And consider this," Pang Tong added gloomily. "If Han silk can reach Great Qin, then the plagues of Great Qin can surely reach the Han. It is a bridge that carries both wealth and death."
The realization sent a collective shiver through the room. Pang Tong then remembered an earlier detail: "I recall the records on the screen mentioning that when Yunchang was... was at the end of his path... the Roman ruler had a list of titles as long as a spear shaft."
The hall went pale. "If the country was in such chaos, does that mean the plague was still ravaging them decades later?"
Kongming made a firm decision. "Once today's session is over, I will consult with the Divine Physician, Zhang Zhongjing. He is a master of febrile diseases; perhaps he has seen something of this nature in his travels."
[The topic now turns back to the Prime Minister's strategy for the South.]
"Wait, what?"
Zhang Fei blurted out, startled by the sudden shift.
The map of the world rapidly zoomed back in, shrinking from the vast continents of Eurasia to the comparatively small territory of Nanzhong.
[Lightscreen]
[Facing the powerful local families and the tribal peoples of the South, the Prime Minister used the Ancient India Road to unite the majority under a banner of profit.
But he never abandoned the oppressed tribes; in fact, he exhausted every resource at his disposal to ensure their long-term stability.
Let us move the clock forward sixteen hundred years.
China was once again beset by internal strife and foreign aggression. In the south, Myanmar had been colonized by the British.
Not content with what they had, the British turned their greedy eyes toward two silver mines located on the lands of the Wa people.
The region of Banhong held a silver mine of immense value.
The British tried to bribe the locals to seize it through "legal" means, but they were rebuffed.
Infuriated, the colonialists decided on a more direct approach: brute force.
In 1934, the British colonists gathered two thousand men and forcibly occupied the mines.
They assumed that by tossing a few scraps of profit to the "ignorant savages," they could buy their silence.
But the Kings of Banhong and Banlao gave them a very different answer: "We are Chinese!"
The King of Banhong declared with righteous indignation: "We are the descendants of Kongming and the subjects of the Celestial Empire! Our motherland is China!"
"We will not be slaves to a fallen nation, just as Myanmar fell to the British!"]
"Good men!"
Zhang Fei slapped Zhao Yun's thigh with a resounding crack.
"Military Advisor, your descendants are made of the right stuff!"
Kongming: "..."
[Lightscreen]
[Facing the British occupation, the King of Banhong gathered seventeen Wa chieftains.
They swore a blood oath to resist the British to the death and issued the famous Proclamation to the Compatriots of the Motherland by the Seventeen Kings of Kawa.' The declaration was simple but heartbreaking.
They admitted they couldn't speak much Mandarin, but for fifty generations, they had served the Han. The Han had been good to the Wa, and the Wa would not betray the Han!
The land and the mines belong to the Han! We cannot fail the intentions of our ancestors!
Facing these compatriots who were ready to die, the people of that era were moved to action, donating whatever they could to support the resistance.
On May 30th, armed with primitive weapons, the Wa people launched an assault on the British forces. After a week of fierce fighting, they forced the British to tuck their tails and retreat back into Myanmar
The "Ancestor" these Wa people spoke of was none other than Zhuge Liang.
They worshipped him as their 'A-Gong A-Zu'—their Grandfather and Ancestor. In their legends, passed down through seventeen centuries,
Zhuge Liang had made a pact with their forefathers: he would help them live, and in return, they would guard the Southern Gate of the Han.
They kept that oath for one thousand seven hundred years.
The world changed, empires rose and fell, but in that small corner of the earth, the Han never died.
The Han people remained.]
Zhang Fei was so overwhelmed that he did not know what to do with himself.
Instead, he lunged forward, grabbed Kongming, and hoisted the Military Advisor into the air, spinning him around twice like a child.
"Military Advisor!"
"I have always respected you, but today I realize I still underestimated you!"
As the world spun around him, Kongming remembered the words he had once written with a playful heart.
Glory belongs to the people.