[Lightscreen]
[Back in 2004, an archaeology symposium was held in London. During the discussion, Peter Ucko, then director of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, raised a sensitive question.
Should the Chinese artifacts currently housed in the British Museum finally be returned to China?
A British scholar immediately stood up to oppose the idea.
And honestly, the logic he used was so outrageous it almost looped back around into brilliance.
His argument went like this.
Historical artifacts are witnesses to history. Their value does not only come from where they were created, but also from the events they experience afterward.
Therefore, the moment the British Empire looted these treasures from China, the artifacts themselves formed a historical connection with Britain.
In other words, according to this man, those objects were no longer purely Chinese artifacts anymore.
They had become British artifacts too
Now, the second half of that argument requires a level of shamelessness that deserves academic study all by itself.
But the first half actually contains a real point.
Artifacts are indeed witnesses.
They record the era of their creation, and they absorb new layers of meaning from the generations that follow.
Take Yan Zhenqing's Draft of a Requiem to My Nephew, for example.
Globally, it is recognized as one of the three greatest surviving masterpieces of semi-cursive calligraphy.
But here is the important part.
Yan Zhenqing did not write this piece to demonstrate artistic perfection.
His nephew had been butchered during the An Lushan Rebellion. His family had been torn apart. His empire was collapsing around him.
So when he picked up the brush, he was not trying to create beauty.
He was bleeding emotion directly onto paper.
The manuscript is messy.
There are corrections, crossed-out words, uneven strokes, smudged ink marks.
This single funerary draft witnessed the full horror of the An Lushan Rebellion.
It witnessed the destruction of the Yan family.
It witnessed Yan Zhenqing's refusal to submit to traitors.
And from an artistic standpoint, it witnessed the birth of an entirely new style of calligraphy
The Brief History of China gives Yan Zhenqing the highest praise.
It states that the four great calligraphers of the early Tang Dynasty were merely inheriting the styles of previous masters. Yan Zhenqing was the first true creator. He invented a new structural style that defined the Tang era.
His structure, his brushwork, his visual weight. All of it became foundational to the mature Tang style.
In a strange sense, Yan Zhenqing spent his entire life acting like a calligraphy brush himself. He spent the first half soaking up the golden ink of the High Tang era. In the second half, he used his own flesh, blood, and military record to write the tragic collapse of his empire.
After Yan Zhenqing was murdered, his draft survived. It passed through the hands of famous scholars and the private vaults of emperors.
That fragile piece of paper watched the Song Dynasty burn, saw the Mongol Yuan unite the realm, witnessed the Ming restoration, and sat quietly as the Manchu Qing breached the northern passes.
Originally, the manuscript was only about seventy-five centimeters long.
But later collectors became increasingly obsessed with leaving their own marks on it.
They attached new sheets of paper to the scroll. Added seals. Added commentaries. Added postscripts.
Generation after generation kept extending it.
Eventually, the scroll expanded to over five hundred centimeters in length.
And unintentionally, those collectors transformed the manuscript into something extraordinary.
Not just a masterpiece of calligraphy.
But a timeline of Chinese civilization itself.]
"What kind of twisted logic is this?"
Wei Zheng slammed his hand against his desk.
He held deep respect for the martyrs of the Yan family, and hearing the British justification for keeping looted goods made his face flush with anger.
"If we follow the reasoning of these thieves, then if we ride into their lands, pillage their wealth, and enslave their people, they have no right to demand justice? They dare call it a shared historical bond? These people possess not a shred of human decency."
Hou Junji rubbed his chin, his eyes glinting with realization.
"Wait. If we apply their logic to military campaigns, does that mean whoever wields the sharpest blade is legally entitled to take whatever they desire?"
A memory surfaced in the mind of the veteran general.
He recalled the travel logs of the monk Xuanzang, who had described the western kingdoms as places entirely devoid of righteousness, ruled only by a desperate hunger for profit.
Hou Junji felt a sudden clarity. Over a thousand years had passed in the future, and those foreign nations had not evolved past their primitive greed.
"If that is their rule," Zhangsun Wuji said with a cold smile, "then conquering them requires no moral justification."
The only flaw in the plan was geography. Zhangsun Wuji did not know where this 'Britain' was located, but he assumed it required a very long march.
Li Shimin remained quiet.
He was captivated by the glowing image on the light screen. He studied the blood-soaked elegy. Just as the future voice described, the scroll was a patchwork of different colored papers.
The prefaces added by later emperors were neat, far longer than the actual draft, and stamped with arrogant imperial seals.
Yet, all those neat additions sat humbly on the margins. They could not overshadow the chaotic, crossed-out brilliance of Yan Zhenqing's original grief.
Calligraphy was one of Li Shimin's greatest obsessions. He was a master of the flying-white script, but right now, he felt small looking at this messy draft.
"The Yan family's requiem," Li Shimin whispered, his voice echoing in the silent hall. "It is the requiem of my entire golden age."
He leaned forward and read the most painful line on the screen aloud. "The father captured, the son slaughtered. The nest overturned, the eggs crushed. Heaven feels no remorse for this disaster. But who unleashed this poison?"
Who unleashed this poison? The future commentator did not explicitly point fingers, but Li Shimin felt a knot tighten in his stomach.
He understood the mechanics of military power better than anyone alive.
He mentally traced the evolution of the army. It started with the capital guards, then expanded to the expeditionary forces he used to crush the northern khanates.
To win wars across vast distances, a commander required autonomy in the field. But as the empire expanded into a limitless frontier, the border generals were granted the same administrative power as the rogue kings of the previous dynasty.
The equation was simple. Powerful border lords combined with a rotting central government created an empire with heavy branches and a hollow trunk.
It only took one ambitious governor to snap the tree in half.
Instead of fear, Li Shimin felt a surge of adrenaline. He slapped his knee.
It was the duty of the ancestors to build a roof thick enough to withstand the storm. He could not expect his descendants to solve a structural flaw he had the power to fix today.
[Lightscreen]
[But even Yan Zhenqing could never have predicted what would happen to his legacy in the modern era.
The injustice he suffered in life was repeated on his masterpiece, because somehow, even in death, this old man still could not escape politics.
The Draft of a Requiem to My Nephew, Ji Zhi Wengao is universally ranked among the greatest calligraphy works ever created. Most lists place it second in all of history, right behind Wang Xizhi's Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Lanting Xu.
But there is one small complication with that ranking.
The Wang Xizhi's Preface to the Orchid Pavilion, Lanting Xu allegedly got buried inside Li Shimin's tomb.
Which means, unless somebody plans to dig up the Taizong Emperor and check his pockets, Yan Zhenqing's draft is basically the greatest surviving semi-cursive work on Earth.
And here is where things start getting painful.
There is a brutal rule in artifact preservation: Paper survives for a thousand years. Silk survives for five hundred.
That draft is already over a millennium old. At this point, the fibers are basically hanging onto existence through sheer historical willpower.
Every time the scroll gets exposed to light, humidity, temperature changes, or physical handling, microscopic damage accumulates.
In simple terms: every viewing slightly kills it.
You look at it once, and a tiny fragment of history disappears forever.
Which is why museums around the world treat objects like this with terrifying levels of caution.
Let us be honest. The Louvre in Paris will never, under any circumstances, allow the Mona Lisa to leave French soil. Egypt will never ship the golden mask of Tutankhamun across the ocean.
These artifacts are civilizational anchors.
But somehow, the authorities in Taiwan decided this thousand-year-old national treasure should be packed up and sent overseas under the wonderfully vague slogan of 'cultural exchange.'
And where did they send it? Japan.
Now let's be very blunt here.
Yan Zhenqing lived through national collapse, foreign invasion, mass slaughter, political betrayal, and civil war. His draft is soaked in the emotional wreckage of one of the bloodiest disasters in Chinese history.
Then, a thousand years later, modern politicians took this symbol of national trauma and shipped it to a country that inflicted another catastrophic national trauma upon China in modern times.
You genuinely cannot invent irony this vicious.
Imagine strangling a man to death, preserving the tears he shed for his broken country, then using those tears centuries later as diplomatic decoration.
That is why this controversy exploded.
Because to many people, this was never just about calligraphy.
It was about dignity.
About memory.
About whether cultural relics are simply expensive antiques, or whether they carry the emotional weight of an entire civilization.
And honestly? The ancients already answered this question long ago.
Back when the corrupt Chancellor Lu Qi schemed to send Yan Zhenqing into a rebel death trap, Chancellor Li Mian famously warned the Emperor:
'Losing an elder statesman brings shame upon the entire court.'
A thousand years later, those words still sting.
Different dynasty. Different politicians. Same humiliation.]
Every minister in the Tang court slowly turned their heads to stare directly at their Emperor.
Li Shimin felt his ears burn bright red. He sat up straight and cleared his throat loudly. "Hey... hey... I just act out of deep love for the arts! Really, just for art! Did you not hear the future voice? Paper only lives for a thousand years. If I did not take Wang Xizhi's Preface to the Orchid Pavilion, the Lanting Xu, under my personal protection, it might have been burned in a war or defiled by thieves. Preserving national treasures is a virtue!"
Zhangsun Wuji smoothly stepped forward to nod in agreement, shielding the Emperor from further awkward stares.
Wei Zheng rolled his eyes inwardly, dismissing the Emperor's fragile ego.
The ministers were mostly just shocked by the morbid reminder of mortality. Seeing their Emperor, who was currently at the absolute peak of his physical prime, suddenly associated with tomb artifacts was deeply unsettling.
They quickly shifted their focus back to the tragedy of the calligraphy scroll.
Wei Zheng frowned, realizing that the future generations were fighting their own treacherous battles. "It seems that shameless cowards multiply like rats, even a millennium later. This draft is soaked in blood and grief. To use it to curry favor with a foreign neighbor is to spit on the graves of their own ancestors."
"Liuqiu, modern Taiwan..." Li Jing muttered.
He was sitting closest to the strategic map painted on the wall. He reached out and traced his calloused finger along the southern coastline.
"If Your Majesty truly wishes to expand the newly formed Department of Naval Affairs, we should begin by securing the islands of Liuqiu and Zhuya."
The maps provided by the light screen in previous broadcasts were precise. Using those future proportions, Li Jing quickly calculated the logistics. The distance from the port of Quanzhou to the island of Liuqiu was barely four hundred miles.
Hou Junji immediately caught the old commander's train of thought.
He stepped up to the map, pointing further east into the empty blue expanse. "And if we establish a staging ground on Liuqiu, we can push northeast. The charts show smaller islands scattered every two to three hundred miles. We can use them as supply chains to march directly onto the shores of that Japanese island nation."
Li Jing stroked his beard. Planning a naval invasion of an unknown island chain across the ocean was premature, but it provided a solid strategic direction.
Ever since the naval edicts were passed last year, government notices had been plastered across every coastal province, recruiting master shipwrights. Massive lumber orders had been routed to Mingzhou and Dengzhou. By the winter of the previous year, the Directorate for Imperial Manufactories had established a new naval engineering office, employing dozens of supervisors to oversee the construction of a deep-water fleet.
Du Ruhui, who controlled the bureaucratic flow of these resources, nodded firmly. "Our naval forces are in their infancy. Using Liuqiu as a live training ground is tactically perfect."
---
Down in the Three Kingdoms era, Zhang Fei had a much simpler takeaway regarding the ancient masterpiece.
"Those future generations really know how to make ink look pretty," Zhang Fei said, tilting his head at the screen. "When the wars are over, I think I will pick up a brush and practice my strokes."
Mi Zhu chuckled from across the war room. "The evolution of calligraphy hides a profound scientific truth, Yide. As the techniques for making paper improve, the cost of paper plummets. Only when writing materials become incredibly cheap do ordinary scholars have the spare time and resources to obsess over the artistic shape of a single character."
Zhang Song felt this truth deeply.
He reached out and flicked the thick stack of crisp, white paper resting on his desk. "If our Lord had not conquered Yizhou and secured the manufacturing lines, we would still be dragging carts of heavy bamboo slips into every meeting. We would be blind to this luxury."
Everyone in the room knew about the legendary Han calligrapher Cai Yong, whose brushwork was famous across the realm.
But for the vast majority of officials who could barely afford basic wooden blocks, buying premium Zuo Bo paper just to practice drawing circles was an offensive waste of money.
Mi Zhu smiled, his eyes crinkling. "Paper is the ultimate weapon of statecraft. It spreads literature, enlightens the peasants, builds the foundation of the government, and coordinates the armies that slaughter our enemies. The future voice praises it highly, and the praise is entirely justified."
Kongming, who had seen the strategic potential of paper years ago, let out a long, slow breath. "The Tang Dynasty was blessed by the heavens to have a man like Yan Zhenqing."
Liu Bei shook his head.
He looked at Kongming with sincerity in his eyes. "Yan Zhenqing was the product of a century of peace. The Tang Dynasty earned him. But I was born into a damn broken world full of ashes and blood. Finding you in the middle of this chaos, Kongming, was a miracle I did not deserve. How fortunate I am."
Liu Bei reached across the table and grasped Kongming's hands tightly.
Kongming laughed, a rare, unrestrained sound of joy. "Why do you humble yourself, My Lord? The chaotic era breeds countless warlords and ambitious butchers. But a man who cares for the peasants and understands the hearts of the people? You are the rarest treasure of all."
Liu Bei patted Kongming's hand gently. "That is the foundation of my life. It is the only reason the future generations look kindly upon me. I will never forget it."
Fa Zheng, leaning casually against a wooden pillar, grinned at the touching scene. "Since we now have access to premium paper and advanced mounting techniques, perhaps Kongming should leave behind a few authentic calligraphy scrolls for the future generations to worship."
Kongming spread his hands helplessly. "We tried sending things through the light screen before, and the future scholars simply called them fakes. Besides, beautiful handwriting is not my specialty."
He looked back at the light screen, his expression turning serious. "Rather than leaving behind a pretty poem, I would much rather leave them the blueprints of scientific thought. A method to understand the world is worth ten million calligraphy scrolls. If, in my lifetime, I can restore the western trade routes and eradicate the eastern island threats, I will close my eyes without a single regret."
Fa Zheng felt a twinge of jealousy.
He was still secretly patting himself on the back for securing the victory in Hanzhong, while Kongming was casually planning the geopolitical restructuring of the entire Asian continent.
Shaking his head, Fa Zheng decided to stop comparing himself to a monster. His personal goals were simple: survive, avoid an early death, rebuild the Han Dynasty, and then worry about his historical reputation.
But a sudden thought crossed Fa Zheng's mind. He stood up straight and looked at Kongming. "By the way, Kongming. Before we returned to Chengdu, your best friend Pang Shiyuan took in a new disciple up in Hanzhong. A local kid named Jiang Wei."
The warm smile on Kongming's face froze. His feather fan stopped moving mid-air.
"Excuse me?" Kongming whispered, his voice flat. "What did you say his name was?"
[Lightscreen]
[During the chaos of the An Lushan Rebellion, a legendary border general named Feng Changqing was recalled to the capital.
He was swept up in the political panic, blamed for the military collapse, made into a scapegoat, and then executed at Tongguan Pass.
But while the court treated him like disposable trash, the western frontier never forgot his name.
Out in Anxi, among the windswept deserts and lonely garrisons of the Silk Road, Feng Changqing became a legend.
And decades later, one young man grew up completely obsessed with him.
His name was Zhang Yichao.
As a teenager, Zhang Yichao repeatedly hand-copied Feng Changqing's final letter before execution.
He practically treated the dead general as a spiritual mentor. In some records, he even referred to himself as Feng Changqing's student.
Now here is the part that makes Feng Changqing unforgettable.
Right before his execution at Tongguan Pass, he requested a brush and paper. Then he calmly wrote his final memorial to the throne: the Memorial of Gratitude and Remonstrance, Xie En Shu Jian Biao.
In this final letter, Feng Changqing did not make a single excuse.
He reviewed the disastrous battles, refused to shift the blame to his subordinates, and boldly stated that he deserved to be executed for losing ground.
He admitted that the troops he commanded were a disorganized mob drawn from the streets, while the rebel cavalry from Yuyang was an unstoppable meat grinder.
But Feng Changqing only cared about one thing: his death needed to serve a tactical purpose. He explicitly stated that he hoped his execution would serve as a wake-up call to the other imperial generals, forcing them to take the rebellion seriously.
His very last sentence was a desperate plea to Li Longji: 'I beg Your Majesty not to underestimate this traitor. Do not forget my words.'
He died using his own corpse as a political warning. He became a ghost watching over a broken court.
We all know what happened next. Li Longji ignored the warning. Tongguan Pass fell. Chang'an fell. We have to wonder if the Emperor, while fleeing into the mountains in terror, ever regretted chopping off Feng Changqing's head.
That final letter was copied by Feng Changqing's loyal lieutenant and smuggled all the way back to the Anxi border, where it became a legendary manifesto.
Seventy years later, surrounded by the collapsing ruins of the western frontier, Zhang Yichao hand-copied that exact letter to fuel his own resolve.
He swore an oath to bleed his way back to the Tang Dynasty.
That specific copy, written by Zhang Yichao's own hands, was eventually sealed inside the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang by his nephew.
Another thousand years passed. In the early nineteenth century, the Dunhuang caves were cracked open and looted by foreign explorers. A wave of irreplaceable artifacts flooded out of the country.
Zhang Yichao's handwritten copy of Feng Changqing's final warning was shipped to France.
Today, it sits locked inside the National Library in Paris.
Just like the Requiem to My Nephew, this letter witnessed the horrors of the An Lushan Rebellion and the agonizing death of the late Tang.
But it also witnessed the unbreakable spirit of two legendary heroes separated by seventy years of darkness. Let us hope that one day, it finally finds its way home.]
"This Li Longji boy definitely did not read a single word of that letter!" Zhang Fei roared, his voice shaking the timber beams of the command tent. He felt a burning injustice for the fallen general.
He slammed his fist against his breastplate. "Thank the heavens that young Zhang Yichao found it. Both the master and the student were true men of iron! It makes the execution of Feng Changqing more bitter to swallow."
The light screen displayed high-resolution images of Zhang Yichao's handwritten copy. The brushwork was sharp, disciplined, and flowed with military precision.
Liu Bei let out a heavy sigh, rubbing his tired eyes. "Yide is right. To have a commander of that caliber, a man who faces execution with grace, takes full responsibility for a broken army, and uses his dying breath to offer tactical advice. The fact that Li Longji managed to ruin a country filled with men like that is an achievement in sheer stupidity."
He frowned, looking at the foreign museum tags attached to the digital image. "A single piece of paper holds the bleeding heart of Feng Changqing and the iron will of Zhang Yichao. To see a treasure of this magnitude trapped in a foreign land is a tragedy."
Zhang Song quickly stepped forward, offering a comforting bow. "Do not despair, My Lord. Our descendants possess the technology to fly into the heavens. If they declare that the day of return is near, then those artifacts will surely be brought home soon."
Liu Bei nodded solemnly. "If that comes to pass, it will be a great victory."
On the other side of the room, Kongming was no longer paying attention to the French museum.
He had a tight grip on Fa Zheng's sleeve, pulling the younger strategist uncomfortably close.
"Tell me exactly how this happened," Zhuge Liang hissed, his usual calm demeanor completely shattered. "How did that boy get quietly escorted into Hanzhong without a single report crossing my desk? Did Shiyuan seriously steal him while I was looking at the map?"
---
"A minister who remonstrates with his corpse... a ghost of the broken court."
Back in the Tang assembly hall, even the stone-hearted Wei Zheng was visibly moved. He stared at the transcript of the letter, his eyes gleaming with unshed tears.
He lowered his head and spoke in a hushed tone. "This general laid his liver and gallbladder on the floor for his emperor. I can only pray to the heavens that our Tang Dynasty does not produce any more heroes forced to die in such pointless tragedies."
Du Ruhui, however, viewed the document through a different lens.
He crossed his arms, his mind analyzing the structural philosophy behind the loyalty.
"This Feng Changqing embodies what that future scholar, Wen Tianxiang, described as the Minister of Righteousness," Du Ruhui observed calmly. "The majesty of the Tang Dynasty does not rest on the throne; it is anchored by men like him. Their warrior spirit and vast hearts will freeze the rivers of time."
Wei Zheng and Du Ruhui exchanged a long, complicated look.
They both realized their definitions of loyalty had fundamentally split.
Standing nearby, Fang Xuanling remained quiet, but his internal logic aligned with Du Ruhui.
He thought about Zhang Yichao. By the time Zhang Yichao was born, the Anxi protectorate had already been swallowed by the Tibetan Empire. That boy had never eaten Tang grain, never received a Tang salary, and had never laid eyes on a Tang Emperor. Yet, he spent his entire life fighting to return to the empire. To claim that Zhang Yichao was simply 'loyal to the monarch' was forced. He was loyal to the idea of the Tang, not the man sitting in the chair.
Li Shimin leaned back against his throne. He had never expected the light screen to draw such a deep connection between these two disparate military figures he had been tracking.
A proud smile broke across the Emperor's face.
"Looking at it from this perspective," Li Shimin declared, his voice ringing with authority, "this young Zhang Yichao truly carries the final breath of my Tang Dynasty. The momentum of our golden age, the safety we built for a hundred years, reaches its end with his sword."