Regarding the blunt evaluations from future generations, Qin Qiong offered a calm smile.
He sat in his chair, his posture still holding the discipline of a career soldier despite the aches settling into his bones. Compared to his peers, he did have a few regrets. A warrior like him should have gone down swinging against foreign raiders, not wasting away in bed. That part hurt for sure.
But as for his official rank at the time of his death? Who cared if he was only Rank Three? How could that be a regret?
If anything, the fact that he was enshrined in the Lingyan Pavilion as an aging general with no new achievements during the Zhenguan era spoke for itself. It was pure luck that the Emperor had not forgotten an old sick friend like him. So no complaints here.
Yuchi Jingde, however, was annoyed on behalf of his old friend. He slapped his thigh.
"Looking at it this way, we have a new plan," Yuchi Jingde declared, his voice carrying across the hall. "Next year when we go to war, I am tagging along as your second-in-command, Shubao. We will rack up so much merit they will have to fix that stupid list!"
Qin Qiong reached over and patted his old comrade's chest, signaling him to relax.
"No worry, Jingde. That is for sure. You and me like old days. But what does it matter who comes first or last on a list?" Qin Qiong asked softly. His tone carried no ego.
While the two veteran generals brewed a new plan in the corner, Emperor Li Shimin stared blankly ahead.
He looked like a man who had just swallowed a lemon.
"So, according to this logic," Li Shimin muttered, his fingers drumming a slow rhythm on the table. "I am actually considered a fellow townsman with this... Zhao Song dynasty?"
The Emperor found himself caught in a strange position.
On one hand, this future Song dynasty claimed to inherit the legacy of his Tang. On the other, they were also claiming Tianshui as their ancestral home. Yet future historians pointed at them and mocked them as the most militarily pathetic dynasty in a thousand years.
How did two dynasties from the same town end up this different? It was like one brother became a champion wrestler and the other could not even lift a bucket of water.
Sitting nearby, Chancellor Du Ruhui was busy thinking through all the clues. He rubbed his chin, piecing things together.
If this Zhao Song dynasty truly traced their origins back to Zhuo County, then based on the future mockery, it seemed highly likely they had completely lost control of their actual ancestral lands to northern enemies.
If they relied on their retroactively claimed origin of Tianshui, the comparison made them look even worse.
Placed side by side with the explosive military founding of the Tang Dynasty, the Song looked completely incompetent. Furthermore, based on the uploader's casual mention of a 'Southern Song' period, Du Ruhui strongly suspected they had eventually lost Tianshui as well.
But it was a seemingly casual two-word phrase from the Light Screen that made Du Ruhui suddenly frown in intense concentration.
"The Jin Dynasty?" Du Ruhui whispered.
Fang Xuanling instantly knew exactly what his colleague was thinking. His own encyclopedic memory had just triggered.
"Earlier," Fang Xuanling noted quietly, leaning closer to Du Ruhui. "When the Light Screen was discussing Empress Xiao of that same Song era, it explicitly mentioned a state called the Liao Dynasty."
Fang Xuanling paused, letting the geopolitical implications settle.
"Could it be..... that this Jin and this Liao were both considered legitimate states on Chinese territory?"
The two chancellors of the Tang Dynasty exchanged a very long, very meaningful look. Suddenly, this future Song Dynasty felt incredibly unimpressive.
In their professional opinion, a dynasty could not claim true unification if massive chunks of the realm were occupied by rival empires.
The political landscape the screen was hinting at sounded disturbingly similar to the chaotic, fractured era of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. A time of constant border skirmishes and divided loyalties.
However, since their actual concrete knowledge regarding this specific future era was practically zero, the two men decided to drop the subject for now. They shared a few more hushed theories before returning their attention forward.
Knowing the unpredictable habits of this future uploader, they were absolutely certain the screen would eventually do a deep dive into the failures of the Song.
They just had to be patient.
Right on cue, the two men focused on the glowing display. The sweeping, modern cityscapes of Tianshui slowly faded into the background. A familiar, highly detailed map of the ancient Chinese empire reappeared on the screen.
[Lightscreen]
[Alright, that is enough about the streamer's travel vlog. Let us get back to business.
Today's historical deep dive starts with a very specific, very dangerous woman.
During the reign of Emperor Gaozong, there was a woman living in the capital city of Luoyang named Madam Chunyu. She was officially arrested and locked up in the Dali Temple for the crime of murdering her own husband.
The case was open and shut. They had physical evidence. They had witness testimonies. According to the strict penal code of the Tang Dynasty, she was absolutely scheduled to be executed. It should have been an incredibly straightforward, routine legal procedure.
But there was a twist. Madam Chunyu was stunningly beautiful. Some said she could rival the legendary Diao Chan herself. Her looks were so striking that rumors spread across the entire city of Luoyang.
Enter Prime Minister Li Yifu.
Li Yifu happened to be in Luoyang on an official inspection tour. Hearing the rampant gossip, his curiosity got the better of him. He wanted to know exactly how beautiful this notorious black widow actually was.
Abusing his supreme executive authority, Li Yifu waltzed into the Dali Temple prisons to take a personal look. The moment he laid eyes on her, he was completely hooked. His brain shut off, his lower half took over, and the curtain rose on an absolute political circus.
Now, we need to establish who Li Yifu is in the historical record.
He was Emperor Gaozong's ultimate confidant. He was Empress Wu's most loyal attack dog. Back when Li Zhi was still just the Crown Prince, Li Yifu was already glued to his side, happily playing the role of a ruthless political fixer. You could accurately describe him as the inner circle of the inner circle.
So when the Prime Minister wants a death row inmate as his personal girlfriend, the lower ranking officials tend to get the message.
The Deputy Minister of the Dali Temple was a very practical man, he faked some papers, pulled some strings, and smuggled Madam Chunyu right out of jail and into Li Yifu's house.
However, there was one major problem.
The Chief Minister of the Dali Temple in Luoyang, a man named Duan Baoxuan, possessed an actual moral. He was absolutely disgusted by the blatant corruption.
Duan Baoxuan immediately drafted a blistering, detailed impeachment memorial and fired it straight up the chain of command. If we translated his memorial into modern clickbait, the title would be:
"SHOCKING!!! YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS! Top Official 'Rehabilitates' Female Murderer By Moving Her Into His Bedroom!"
Because the scandal directly involved the sitting Prime Minister, Emperor Li Zhi could not simply play dead and ignore it. He had to launch an official investigation. He hastily assigned two specific officials to review the case.
The men drafted for the job were Liu Rengui, serving as a Supervising Censor, and Zhang Lun, a Palace Censor.
If you understand Tang Dynasty bureaucratic ranks, you instantly know exactly what Emperor Li Zhi was trying to do. He was actively trying to sweep the entire scandal under the rug.
Let us look at a direct historical comparison. When Li Zhi needed to investigate his own uncle, the legendary Chancellor Zhangsun Wuji, who did he send? He sent Li Ji and Xu Jingzong. Two absolute heavyweights who were both sitting Prime Ministers themselves.
But for Li Yifu? Liu Rengui was a Rank Five official. Zhang Lun was a Rank Six official. Sending two mid-level bureaucrats to interrogate the active Prime Minister is the political equivalent of bringing a butter knife to a tank fight.
The Emperor was clearly signaling that this was a minor issue that needed to go away quietly.
Li Yifu and Emperor Li Zhi shared a deep, unspoken political telepathy. The moment Li Yifu saw Liu Rengui walk through his door, he understood the Emperor's true stance.
Li Yifu immediately went into damage control mode. He applied terrifying leverage and forced the Deputy Minister of the Dali Temple to commit suicide.
Boom. The primary paper trail was severed. The main witness was dead. The classic 'dead men tell no tales' defense.
However, both Li Yifu and Emperor Li Zhi made one catastrophic miscalculation. They accidentally assigned the job to the most stubborn man in the entire empire.
Liu Rengui was a man famously known for refusing to give face to Emperor Li Shimin himself. Did Li Zhi really think this guy was going to accept a sloppy cover-up just to protect a corrupt lapdog?
The result was completely predictable.
Liu Rengui decided he was going to take a rusty knife and jam it directly into Emperor Li Zhi's political backside. He was going to force the Emperor to look at the ugly truth.
At its core, the murder case was not actually complicated. The methods used to pervert the law and smuggle the woman out were incredibly sloppy and obvious. While his partner Zhang Lun panicked and essentially quit the investigation out of fear, Liu Rengui worked solo. He meticulously documented every single forged document, every broken protocol, and every obvious lie.
He bundled it all up into a brutal, undeniable report and dropped it squarely on Emperor Li Zhi's desk.
The subtext of the report was essentially: 'Here are the facts, Your Majesty. Let us see how you handle this.'
But context is everything in history. The year was 659 AD.
Emperor Li Zhi was in the final, bloody stages of his political war to destroy his uncle, Zhangsun Wuji. He desperately needed Li Yifu. Li Yifu was the attack dog keeping Zhangsun Wuji's faction completely off balance.
As a result, Liu Rengui's meticulously researched report was placed into the 'pending' pile and completely ignored. He was left on 'read'.
Once Li Yifu realized he had survived the probe, he immediately launched a vicious counterattack.
He fired his own memorial at the throne, accusing Liu Rengui of various administrative crimes. This time, Emperor Li Zhi replied with lightning speed.
Liu Rengui was immediately stripped of his position in the capital and banished to the coast.
He was demoted to the role of Qingzhou Prefect.
It is a running joke among historians that the veteran officials of the Taizong era all shared a specific genetic trait: they were extreme late bloomers. Liu Rengui was the ultimate example of this rule.
Triggered entirely by this unjust demotion, the fifty-eight-year-old Liu Rengui, a man possessing top-tier civil and military talents, was about to officially kick off the most insanely epic, globe-trotting chapter of his entire life.]
Inside the Ganlu Pavilion, Emperor Li Shimin felt his jaw clench. A deep, ugly furrow appeared between his brows.
The initial spark of amusement he felt from watching Liu Rengui, the nervous new addition to their secret viewing party, evaporated instantly.
The Light Screen rarely used such explicit, aggressively blunt language to label a historical minister as a treacherous sycophant.
When the uploader used terms like 'loyal dog' and 'corrupt', it was a definitive historical ruling. It meant the man in question possessed absolutely zero redeeming qualities in the eyes of history.
Li Shimin felt a cold weight settle in his stomach. He had never imagined that a certified, history-ruining villain was currently operating so close to his own family. This Li Yifu was a primary staff member in his son's Eastern Palace?
He closed his eyes, his strategic mind spinning rapidly. He forced himself to look past his immediate disgust and analyze the future political board.
No... from a cold political angle… he could see the boy's strategy has a brutal logic to it.
Li Shimin began piecing the puzzle together.
His son, Li Zhi, was actively trying to build a faction of completely dependent loyalists to counter the massive, suffocating influence of his own uncle, Zhangsun Wuji.
Furthermore, the Light Screen had previously mentioned that Li Zhi suffered from chronic, debilitating health issues later in his life. A physically weak Emperor navigating a shark tank of veteran politicians needed absolute loyalty above all else.
Perhaps elevating a completely immoral attack dog like Li Yifu was simply a necessary, desperate survival tactic. A dark art of imperial management.
But...
Li Shimin let out a heavy, barely audible sigh. It was the sigh of a disappointed father.
It was a path of shadows and deceit.
Relying on treacherous sycophants always backfired in the end. It poisoned the well of the entire bureaucracy.
If you truly need a monster to execute your political enemies, Li Shimin thought, it is far safer to elevate a strict, rule-obsessed cruel official. At least a cruel official targets everyone equally. Elevating a corrupt, lust-driven sycophant with zero moral compass is just begging for the empire to rot from the inside out.
While the Emperor brooded over the failures of his heir, a completely different, volatile drama was unfolding on the other side of the pavilion.
Two of the most powerful men in the Tang Dynasty were currently staring at each other, their eyes wide with shock.
Zhangsun Wuji, the supreme Chancellor and brother-in-law to the Emperor, was glaring daggers directly at Li Ji, the supreme commander of the military.
A singular, horrifying realization was currently looping through Zhangsun Wuji's brain like a runaway carriage.
I cannot believe I get taken down by the Wagang Mountain bandits!
The historical math was undeniable. Both Xu Jingzong and Li Ji were original founding members of the Qin King's inner circle. They had helped Li Shimin win the empire.
But if you traced their resumes back just a little further before they joined the Tang cause? They both originated from the chaotic Wagang Army rebel faction.
After the rebel leader Li Mi suffered a defeat, his remaining generals surrendered to Emperor Li Shimin.
And now, according to the future timeline, these former rebels were going to team up with his own flesh-and-blood nephew to completely destroy him?
Zhangsun Wuji felt a profound sense of utter confusion mixed with rising panic. What in the world did he possibly do in the future to warrant this level of absolute, coordinated destruction? How did he trigger such universal hatred among the Emperor's men?
He refused to believe the narrative.
Even if they beat him to death in the courtyard right now, he would never accept that he committed treason.
He was a Grand Duke of the Empire! His sister was the Empress! Why on earth would he ever try to overthrow his own nephew? The logic simply did not exist!
Feeling the sheer, murderous intensity of the Chancellor's glare, Li Ji suddenly found the grain pattern on the wooden floorboards incredibly fascinating.
He refused to make eye contact.
Yes, Zhangsun Wuji currently held no active military command. Yes, if you compared their actual battlefield records, Li Shiji outranked him by a massive margin. Li Ji was a god of war; Zhangsun Wuji was a politician.
But none of that mattered right now. Zhangsun Wuji was the Empress's biological brother. He was the ultimate untouchable VIP of the Tang court.
Li Ji decided the best tactical maneuver was completely ignoring the glaring politician. If I don't look at him, he can't kill me with his mind.
If Zhangsun Wuji was currently drowning in a sea of confused betrayal, then Liu Rengui was completely paralyzed by an existential crisis.
He sat frozen in his chair, his mind desperately trying to process the timeline the screen had just laid out.
At fifty-eight years old, he finally managed to climb the ladder and become a Supervising Censor. A decent, respectable rank.
Then, because he actually did his job and reported the truth, he managed to mortally offend the most powerful, vindictive Prime Minister in the empire.
As a reward for his integrity, he got banished to the absolute edge of the map in Qingzhou.
Liu Rengui mentally reviewed this sequence of events. No matter how he looked at it, this was the classic, textbook origin story of a minor official who dies of malaria in a muddy swamp, completely forgotten by history.
Burying his bones in a foreign, hostile province seemed like an absolute certainty.
The physical arrangement of the room only heightened his isolation.
The Emperor was lost in deep thought, clearly stressing over his son's future reign. The military generals were shooting weird looks at him, but they were seated on the opposite side of the massive pavilion.
Zhangsun Wuji was actively trying to set Li Ji on fire with his eyes.
General Hou Junji was leaning back in his chair, thoroughly enjoying the sudden tension between the Chancellor and the Commander. Meanwhile, Wei Zheng, Fang Xuanling, and Du Ruhui were huddled together, whispering furiously and exchanging rapid-fire political theories.
Sensing the sheer, overwhelming panic radiating from the new guy, the elderly physician Sun Simiao let out a gentle sigh.
He stood up slowly, walked over, and placed a warm, incredibly reassuring hand on Liu Rengui's trembling shoulder.
Taking on the tone of a wise, ancient grandfather, Sun Simiao offered a comforting smile.
"Since the future generations have spoken with such absolute certainty," Sun Simiao said, his voice calm and steady, "you should simply sit back and watch, Zhengze. Do not panic. According to the screen, your name is destined to echo through a thousand years of history. You are going to shake the very foundations of the Huaxia civilization."
Liu Rengui stared up at the kindly old doctor. He felt like his eyes were going to pop out of his skull.
Ever since a royal guard had shoved a handwritten letter from the Emperor into his hands earlier that morning, Liu Rengui felt like his entire reality was constantly breaking and resetting.
Echo through a thousand years? Shake the foundations of civilization? Liu Rengui screamed internally. Do you have any idea how statistically impossible that is?
Unless the ancestral graves of the Liu family suddenly erupted with a pillar of miraculous green smoke a hundred feet tall, there was absolutely no way a banished, fifty-eight-year-old paper pusher was going to achieve legendary status!