[Lightscreen]
[To be fair, the Ming Dynasty only started emotionally posting about the glory days when their house was actively burning down.
When a dynasty is still winning wars, collecting taxes, and bullying its neighbors, nobody wakes up thinking: 'Man... I really miss the Han Dynasty.'
No. That nostalgia usually kicks in after enemy cavalry starts appearing outside the capital.
But if we're talking about the true champions of historical yearning, nobody beats the Song Dynasty.
The Southern Song literati turned 'missing the Han and Tang' into an entire emotional genre.
Read enough Song poetry and eventually you realize everybody is crying about Chang'an.
Su Shi misses Chang'an. Xin Qiji misses Chang'an. Li Qingzhao misses Chang'an.
At first you think: 'Wow. These people are incredibly passionate about Tang real estate.'
But here's the trick.
A lot of the time, when Southern Song writers talked about 'Chang'an,' they weren't literally talking about Tang Chang'an.
They were talking about Bianjing.
Their own lost capital.
The city later known as Kaifeng.
Because after the Jingkang Disaster, the Jin armies rolled south, captured Emperor Huizong and Emperor Qinzong together, packed half the imperial court into carts, and dragged them north like political loot boxes.
The psychological damage from this event was astronomical.
The Northern Song basically died overnight.
And unlike the Tang, which repeatedly lost capitals but still retained the ability to punch back, the Southern Song never recovered the north again.
The Tang suffered through "six falls of the capital, emperors flee nine times." The Southern Song just... vanished outright.
That is why Southern Song poetry feels different from Tang Dynasty poetry.
Tang Dynasty poetry often sounds expansive and confident: frontiers, horses, deserts, moonlight, military glory, climbing towers, drinking wine.
Southern Song Dynasty poetry? Half the country is gone and everybody sounds spiritually exhausted.
The Tang at least had Li Longji, a ruler who was genuinely capable for decades before catastrophically fumbling the late game. One half-muddled emperor was already enough to ruin the Tang.
The Song? Three muddled emperors in a row. Huizong, Qinzong, Gaozong. Back to back to back. Like a disaster relay race where nobody drops the baton because everyone is equally terrible.
This is one of the most brutal political losing streaks in Chinese history. Honestly, the fact that the Song didn't vanish from the map fifty years earlier is a miracle of economic inertia.
Huizong was obsessed with art and Daoist aesthetics while the military rotted. Qinzong inherited a disaster and somehow made it worse. Then Gaozong stabilized the south politically... but spent the rest of his reign being terrified that successful generals might become more popular than the throne itself.
You can physically feel patriotic officials aging in real time reading this history.
By the Southern Song era, expectations had collapsed so hard that Xin Qiji wasn't even dreaming about another Emperor Wu of Han or Li Shimin anymore.
The man basically wrote: "Could we maybe get a ruler with the competence level of Sun Quan? Just... Sun Quan. That's enough."
And remember: Sun Quan wasn't some universal conqueror. He was fundamentally a regional hegemon whose greatest achievement was surviving the Three Kingdoms free-for-all without exploding.
That is how low the bar had fallen. They were openly praying that their ruler could display the basic survival instincts of a regional warlord from Wu.
Now, speaking structurally, the Tang Dynasty actually revealed some of these future problems pretty early.
The existence of the dual-capital system, Chang'an in the west and Luoyang in the east, already hinted at a major economic shift.
Politically, Chang'an remained the symbolic heart of the empire.
Economically? The east was becoming increasingly important.
The Grand Canal, the grain supply routes, the population centers, the tax base, more and more of the empire's lifeblood was concentrating eastward.
This created a weird late Tang situation where the court insisted on sitting in Chang'an because of prestige, while the economy increasingly behaved like it wanted the capital closer to Luoyang.
And every time rebellion or war disrupted transport routes, Chang'an immediately started having supply problems.
So in hindsight, some historians argue that permanently relocating the capital eastward earlier might've reduced a lot of late Tang logistical suffering.
Of course...
telling a proud dynasty to abandon its sacred capital is politically about as easy as convincing a modern superpower to relocate its capital because traffic is inconvenient.
Nobody wants to be the guy remembered for saying: 'Maybe we should leave Chang'an.']
Li Shimin sat motionless in his carved chair as the light screen faded to a dull shimmer.
The usual burst of creative energy that drove him to grab a brush and scribble poetry after a broadcast was absent.
He reached down, picked up a silk-wrapped bundle, and slid it across the desk toward Zhangsun Wuji. A silent tilt of his chin was all it took.
His brother-in-law understood the signal and carried the package toward the offering zone.
Nearby, Fang Xuanling quietly massaged his aching lower back. The volume of data they had been forced to transcribe over the last several hours was staggering.
Balancing the rapid flow of future history while analyzing the geopolitical fallout was proving more exhausting than managing the entire imperial budget.
Du Ruhui, however, stared at the blank screen with genuine horror. "Chang'an fell six times?"
The concept of an emperor fleeing his own palace had stopped shocking him long ago, especially after watching that footage of Emperor Xizong sprinting from the capital with the fluid grace of a professional track athlete.
But the physical destruction of the capital six separate times wounded his administrative soul.
"Why do you look so surprised?" Li Shimin broke his silence, a cold chuckle echoing through the hall.
"When the Son of Heaven displays the structural authority of wet cardboard, every regional governor with an armed division starts looking in the mirror and seeing Cao Cao staring back."
Ever since the light screen had established a tenuous connection with the Three Kingdoms era, Li Shimin had spent his evenings studying the mechanics of the Han collapse.
A late Tang Jiedushi with control over local taxes and recruitment lines was identical to a late Han warlord, the same virus, just separated by a few centuries.
He watched Zhangsun Wuji place the silk bundle onto the designated zone and observed the material dissolve into pixels, then he leaned back, his posture returning to its usual relaxed dominance.
"Unusual crises require unusual solutions. During a rebellion, you give border commanders whatever authority they need to survive the night. But the moment the dust settles, you march the central army in and strip those titles away piece by piece. The tragedy of my late Tang descendants is that not a single one of them possessed the spine to execute the second half of that equation."
The ministers remained silent, the weight of the critique hanging heavy in the air.
Li Jing sighed, his eyes tracking the empty space where the military charts had been.
"If the elite cavalry units of the central guard and the Beiya Imperial Forces hadn't been underfunded by the civilian bureaucracy, we could have deployed a competent general to liquidate those governors one by one."
"If those two defensive divisions had remained functional," Du Ruhui added, his voice tight, "Feng Changqing would have possessed the heavy infantry required to hold the passes. The rebel cavalry would have broken their teeth on our shields, and the capital would never have seen a single spark of war."
Wei Zheng immediately snorted.
"And where exactly was the money supposed to come from?"
He turned toward Li Jing without the slightest hesitation. "Maintaining frontier cavalry, central cavalry, palace guards, river transport, grain reserves, fortifications, and rotating garrisons all at once would bleed the treasury dry. The High Tang could afford that madness because the empire was expanding like a wildfire. The late Tang was already coughing blood financially."
Li Jing opened his mouth, then quietly closed it again.
Unfortunately, Wei Zheng was correct.
An empire could maintain terrifying military institutions during periods of conquest and prosperity. But once territorial expansion stopped and internal corruption accelerated, those same military structures transformed into giant money-eating monsters.
Hou Junji crossed his arms with visible irritation. "So the solution is to let provincial governors become miniature emperors?"
Wei Zheng shot back instantly. "The solution is to stop creating monsters in the first place."
The hall fell silent for a beat.
Then Fang Xuanling slowly nodded. "The root problem still traces back to Li Longji."
His tone was calm, but exhausted. "The military districts were originally meant to solve border defense problems. But once frontier armies became permanently stationed, self-sufficient, and professionally separated from the central government..." He tapped the desk lightly. "The court gradually lost direct control over military force."
"And once a military governor controls troops, taxation, local logistics, and appointments," Du Ruhui finished grimly, "he stops being a governor. He becomes a kingdom wearing Tang robes."
Li Shimin's fingers drummed softly against the armrest. After watching all these future disasters, he had begun noticing an almost comical historical pattern.
Whenever the central court became weak, regional military strongmen immediately started acting like contestants in some massive imperial audition.
An Lushan. Shi Siming. The late Tang Jiedushi. The warlords at the end of Han.
Even that Zhao Kuangyin fellow from the Song. At the core, it was always the same story.
Give a man soldiers long enough, and eventually he starts wondering whether the dragon throne would look good under his backside.
Li Shimin suddenly let out a short laugh. "Kongming truly suffered."
The ministers blinked.
Li Shimin shook his head with amusement. "Imagine spending your entire life trying to restore Han authority while every provincial commander around you secretly dreams of becoming the next Cao Cao."
Wei Zheng immediately nodded in deep agreement. "Compared to the late Han, Your Majesty's reign is practically paradise."
"That," Li Shimin replied dryly, "is the lowest possible standard for praise."
A ripple of restrained laughter finally eased some of the suffocating tension inside Ganlu Hall.
Far across the temporal divide, inside the provincial office of Chengdu, Kongming closed his white feather fan.
He looked out the open window, his voice carrying a gentle, melancholic rhythm as he recited the line from the future screen. "Dreaming of Chang'an thirty thousand li away."
From a purely technical perspective, the verse lacked the complex tonal architecture of a high-court masterpiece. But the raw, unpolished sincerity of the emotion was something Kongming felt in his marrow.
The phrase wasn't about a physical city; it was an expression of a man watching the twilight of an entire civilization.
The future scholar Chen Zilong had entered government service only to watch the Ming Dynasty collapse into ashes.
Kongming looked down at his own desk, cluttered with tax reports, recruitment logs, and weapon blueprints. He was fighting the exact same battle against time to prevent the Han Dynasty from sliding into the dark.
Fa Zheng sat against the wooden railing, a rare shadow of vulnerability crossing his sharp features.
If the political structure of the empire hadn't rotted from the inside out, he wouldn't have spent his best years hiding in the damp valleys of Yizhou, watching his youth evaporate while mediocre officials ran the administration.
Liu Bei took in the heavy silence of the room. With a sudden, brilliant smile that seemed to banish the winter chill, he clapped his hands together to shatter the gloomy atmosphere.
He looked across the table at his strategist, his eyes bright with warmth.
"Kongming, do you remember when we first met at the thatched cottage?"
Liu Bei laughed, leaning forward. "I told you that back in my hometown of Zhuo County, my family estate had a mulberry tree that stood over five zhang tall. You gave me that polite, skeptical look of yours, refusing to believe a word of it."
Kongming blinked, a genuine smile breaking through his professional reserve as he offered a slight bow with his fan.
"I am telling you the truth," Liu Bei continued, turning his gaze toward Fa Zheng.
"Once we crush Cao Cao forces and reclaim our ancestral lands, I am personally going to drive the carriage and take Kongming to see that tree. And as for you, Xiaozhi, I remember the rumors floating around Chengdu when we first arrived. People said that when you were a teenager, you used to tell anyone who would listen that you would eventually become a Marquis."
Fa Zheng's ears turned a sudden, noticeable shade of red, but he refused to lower his head.
"I have heard stories about the majesty of Chang'an my entire life," Liu Bei said, his voice dropping to a tone of deep trust.
"But if we are actually going to march through those gates and restore the Han, I am going to need every ounce of that brilliant, arrogant brain of yours, Xiaozhi."
Fa Zheng stood up straight, his face clearing as a fierce grin replaced his embarrassment. "Consider it done, My Lord! We will take Chang'an, clear the streets, and I will personally handle the logistics to ensure your imperial carriage doesn't encounter a single bump on the road!"
Zhao Yun stepped into the light of the oil lamp, a rare chuckle escaping his lips.
"When the northern road is open and we finally return to my home district of Changshan, I am putting my name down to host the victory feast. I want to treat all of you to the fresh pears of Zhending. I haven't tasted one in over fifteen years, but I can still remember the sweetness."
Kongming nodded repeatedly, his eyes crinkling with delight. One by one, his brothers were painting the future with their words, and he was quietly memorizing every stroke.
Zhang Fei looked around the room, his brow furrowing as he tried to come up with a gift that could compete with premium fruit and imperial carriages.
"Fine! When we get back to Zhuo County, I'm heading straight to the pens. Two of the finest piglets, personally selected by me, for everyone in this room! Let's see Zhao Yun's pears beat that!"
The entire command staff burst into laughter. Kongming laughed so hard he had to use his fan to cover his face, eventually stepping forward to tap Zhang Fei gently on his leather breastplate.
"The scholars of the future are actively praying for a legendary figure like Huo Qubing to save them,"
Kongming said, his voice filled with quiet pride. "But when you and Yunchang lock shields and spears on the battlefield, there isn't a general in history who can match your stride. I look forward to the day you write your victories on the northern border stones, Third Brother. Let's leave the butcher business in the past."
Zhang Fei beat his fist against his armor, the metal clanging loudly. "You don't have to worry about me dying in some embarrassing bedroom conspiracy like that An Lushan boy. A real man finishes his story wrapped in horsehide on a field of victory!"
In the corner of the room, Xu Shu watched the exchange with a deep sense of satisfaction. This unbreakable brotherhood was the exact reason he had chosen to follow Liu Bei into the wilderness.
The dragon had finally broken free from the shallows of the southern swamps. The story of the Three Kingdoms was about to be rewritten.
Before he could voice his thoughts, the air in the center of the hall crackled with static energy. The light screen began to unfold once more.
[Lightscreen]
[Hey, hey, hey! First of all, we need to take a quick moment to give a massive shoutout to our absolute unit of an anonymous big boss!
The package arrived this morning, and let me tell you, the verification process was intense. It is solid gold, completely authentic, and the craftsmanship is incredible!
Though, bro, we might need to have a serious conversation about the wording on the presentation case? My actual legal name is Wen Mang, but the inscription on this thing is a wild choice. QAQ]
The officials in Chengdu collectively shifted their gaze downward, their eyes widening as the camera on the screen focused on the two items resting on a modern desk.
The first item was an unpolished, rustic staff made of Qiong bamboo, its natural knots polished to a dull sheen by years of handling. Every single person in the Shu Han court recognized it instantly; it was the personal walking stick Kongming had sent through the portal.
The second item was a spectacular display of imperial extravagance. It was a thick, heavy plaque made of solid gold, its surface shimmering under the modern studio lights. Inlaid across the gold plate were delicate, flowing characters formed from pure silver wire, utilizing an intricate metalworking technique.
In the upper right corner, two bold characters were carved into the gold: Zhangyu, The Illiterate One.
In the center, the text read: Universal celebration, the start of a golden age.
In the bottom left corner, a formal imperial signature was clearly visible: Emperor Li Shimin.
But the detail that caused the modern chat feed to explode with laughter was a distinct, semi-circular indentation pressed deeply into the soft upper edge of the solid gold plate. It was clearly the unmistakable impression of a human set of teeth.
[Server Chat Log]
[User_4421: Bro, I am losing my mind. Did the streamer seriously just take a massive bite out of a priceless historical artifact to check if it was real?!
HistoryBuff99: To be fair, if an anonymous package showed up at my house claiming to be from Li Shimin, a bite test is a solid first move.
ArtHistoryNerd: You guys are missing the real joke. Look at that title! 'Zhangyu' means uneducated or illiterate. The Emperor literally sent a custom-made, high-end piece of metallurgy just to call the host a dumb-dumb to his face. The pettiness is tier-one.LOL
MuseumGuy: The bite mark actually ruins the aesthetic value, but the historic context is fascinating. This gold plaque is a direct reference to the Tang Dynasty tradition of imperial greeting cards. Legend says Li Shimin invented the practice by using custom-cast bronze cards to reward his inner circle during the New Year. When the commoners saw it, they copied the style using paper because they couldn't afford metal. This gold-and-silver inlay technique is a masterpiece of ancient craftsmanship.
CalligraphyGeek: Wait, look at the bamboo staff next to it. That's a classic Qiong bamboo cane from Sichuan. Seeing that staff next to a Li Shimin artifact reminds me of Wang Xizhi's famous 'Seventeen Postscripts.' One of the missing entries was titled the 'Qiong Bamboo Staff Postscript.' There's an old rumor that Er Feng loved that specific scroll so much he accidentally destroyed it or took it to his grave.
ArchiveKeeper: That's an unfair rumor! Just because Er Feng was a calligraphy hoarder doesn't mean he ruined everything. The imperial catalogs show it stayed in the palace collection for generations. It most likely vanished when the rebel forces burned the royal archives during the An Lushan Rebellion.]
Back in the Tang Dynasty's main assembly hall, the ministers looked at the digital image of the gold card, then slowly turned their heads to stare at Li Shimin.
A self-satisfied smirk spread across the Emperor's face. He leaned his elbow on the armrest, enjoying the moment. "That little brat spent three whole episodes calling me 'Erfeng this, Erfeng that' on a global broadcast. It is only fair that I return the favor and label his package with his proper title."
A wave of polite, amused chuckles rippled through the ranks of the court.
The idea of an Emperor engaging in a cross-temporal metadata war with a future internet commentator was irregular, but it was undeniably entertaining.
However, as Li Shimin read the scrolling comments regarding the missing Wang Xizhi masterpiece, his brow knit back into a sharp line.
He slammed his hand against the desk, his voice echoing through the chamber. "See! Did you read that? The future scholars have cleared my name! The loss of that precious scroll had nothing to do with my burial arrangements! It was those incompetent late Tang generals who let the rebel armies set fire to my library!"
He let out a sharp breath, the artistic frustration reminding him of his ongoing domestic projects.
He turned his sharp gaze toward Hou Junji, who was standing near the back of the pavilion. "Speaking of future innovations, how is our glass manufacturing initiative progressing? The light screen gave us the exact chemical formula for using salt-lake minerals to achieve total transparency."
Hou Junji felt a sudden bead of cold sweat trace a line down his temple. He stepped forward, his boots clicking uncomfortably loud against the polished floorboards. He had confidently taken charge of the project a month ago, assuming that having the instructions from the future would make the process simple. He hadn't anticipated the practical nightmares of kiln temperature regulation.
"The... the current batches are coming out of the ovens, Your Majesty," Hou Junji stammered, his usual military confidence wavering. "But the clarity is not yet ideal. The material remains cloudy, filled with dark green impurities and air pockets. If you can grant the Bureau of Works another four weeks, I guarantee we will..."
Li Shimin cut him off with a smooth, dismissive wave of his hand. He could read his generals like an open map, and it was obvious Hou Junji possessed no aptitude for chemical engineering. "That is enough. It is currently January third. The court is in the middle of the winter holidays, and you have another seven days of rest before the regular administrative schedule resumes."
He looked across the room, taking in the deep circles under Fang Xuanling's eyes and the physical exhaustion lining Du Ruhui's face. He softened his tone, displaying the magnanimous charm that made his men fiercely loyal.
"Go home. Spend time with your families, drink some wine, and rest your minds. We have a massive empire to rebuild, but we cannot do it if my inner circle collapses from exhaustion before the spring thaw."
The ministers bowed low, their voices blending in a harmonious chorus of gratitude as they began to file out of the massive hall.
Li Shimin watched them leave, then turned his steps toward the residential quarters of the inner palace.
The holiday season had allowed him to suspend the intense academic schedules of the royal princes and princesses, and the palace gardens were currently filled with the bright, chaotic sounds of children playing in the snow.
He walked past the frozen ponds, watching his eldest son, Crown Prince Chengqian, running across the lawns.
The boy's usual stiff, anxious demeanor had vanished, replaced by a genuine, relaxed laughter that made Li Shimin's chest tighten with affection.
But as the Emperor watched the children interact, his eyes narrowed slightly. He noticed that Chengqian was spending an unusual amount of time talking to a sharp-eyed, exceptionally poised young girl from the Wu family who had recently entered court service. The way the young girl carried herself, with a quiet, mature focus, made Li Shimin feel a strange, instinctive ping of administrative caution.
Before he could dwell on the thought, a shadow detached itself from the edge of the stone corridor.
It was Li Junxian, the commander of the Left Gate Guard. He held a sealed intelligence scroll wrapped in the dark leather of the secret service branch.
As one of the few men who possessed direct, unsupervised access to the Emperor's personal schedule, his appearance meant that a major security development had broken through the holiday freeze.
"Your Majesty," Li Junxian whispered, his voice level as he offered a crisp military salute. "The border patrols have confirmed the arrival. Master Xuanzang has officially entered the jurisdiction of Chang'an."
Li Shimin stopped his walk, his fingers tracing the gold embroidery on his sleeve. "The monk from the prison? I thought the reports indicated he was hesitating at the western checkpoints after his release."
"He was not hesitating out of fear, Your Majesty," Li Junxian clarified, a hint of professional respect entering his tone. "According to our field agents, the moment I released him and delivered your personal verbal decree, he became serene. He spent the last several weeks calmly visiting his remaining relatives, organizing his theological manuscripts, and purchasing premium pack mules from the local markets. He knew your word was absolute, so he traveled with zero haste."
"An interesting character," Li Shimin murmured, genuine curiosity flickering in his eyes. He turned away from the snow-covered gardens, his strategic mind immediately locking onto the potential of a man who had walked across the western deserts entirely on foot. "Cancel my evening rest. Arrange a private audience in the side library. I want to look into the eyes of a man who isn't afraid of the edge of the world."
As he walked back toward his study, a final thought from the future broadcast resurfaced in his mind. He stopped at the threshold and looked back at his intelligence chief. "One more thing, Junxian. I need you to pull a specific military personnel file from the northern deployment archives."
Li Junxian waited, his pen ready.
"Find me everything we have on a young officer named Su Lie," Li Shimin commanded, his voice carrying the cold weight of a ruler who was already moving pieces across a ten-thousand-li chessboard.
"I want to know his current rank, his tactical evaluations, and exactly how many men he can command before the spring campaign begins."