Inside Chengdu's government office, the air was thick with the smell of strong tea and polished metal from the armor.
Listening to the blunt words echoing from the Light Screen, Zhang Fei did something nobody expected. He let out a long, tired sigh.
Liu Bei looked up from his scrolls, genuinely caught off guard. "Is something weighing on you, Yide?"
Zhang Fei scratched his thick beard and pointed a meaty finger at the glowing screen. "I was thinking about the Qiang tribes."
That was all he said. But Liu Bei understood exactly what his brother meant.
The Qiang people. Or more to the point, the Qiang and Hu tribal groups together.
Across the critical strategic areas of Sanfu, Yongzhou, and Liangzhou, these nomadic tribes were everywhere. You couldn't even count them all. They were a huge part of the population, a fact no one could ignore. Any ruler who wanted to hold the northwest had to deal with them one way or another.
Back in Emperor Wu of Han's day, things were totally different. To choke out the terrifying Xiongnu empire up north, the Han actively reached out to the Qiang. They built a full alliance where both sides benefited.
Then history turned on its head.
By Emperor Guangwu's time, the whole geopolitical picture had flipped upside down. The Xiongnu tore themselves apart in civil war, splitting into Northern and Southern factions. The Southern Xiongnu knelt to the Han, swore loyalty, and even fought alongside Han armies to smash their own northern relatives into the ground.
With the Southern Xiongnu acting as a loyal buffer, and the Han military backing them up, the Northern Xiongnu were beaten so bad they couldn't even fight back.
Once things got this good for the Han, the court's priorities shifted. Nobles and officials in the capital looked at the map and all agreed on one thing: the Qiang weren't useful anymore. The alliance just faded away like morning mist.
What came next was way worse.
Heavy taxes became standard. Border officials raided Qiang villages whenever they felt like it. Women were snatched, kids were taken away, and the weak ended up as slaves in Han households. The strong were forced to work or fight in the army, pushed until they had nothing left.
That was just how life was along the frontier. Every single day.
A few days earlier, Zhuge Liang had put it plain and simple: "The Han Dynasty's ruling class stopped seeing the Qiang as people. At best, they never gave them the same basic respect they gave to Han citizens."
No one in the room had said a word against it.
The reason this history was suddenly on everyone's mind was simple and practical. In exactly two months, Shu Han would march on Hanzhong. Yizhou was already solid. Hanzhong was next. After that came Yongzhou and Liangzhou. Opening the path to Guanzhong and the Central Plains.
To make that plan work, they couldn't just brush the Qiang aside. Whether they became allies or just stayed out of the fight, the tribes would play a massive role.
Because of this, Zhuge Liang had been spending hours every day giving Liu Bei private, super detailed briefings on how people lived and interacted along the northwest border.
Zhuge Liang's main point was simple but powerful: If the Qiang tribes are at peace, the northwest will be stable. If the northwest is stable, you've got the foundation you need to unite the whole realm.
Liu Bei nodded slowly, letting every word sink in deep. His eyes drifted back to the Light Screen.
"This Baekje kingdom," Liu Bei said quietly, studying what was happening to the Tang Dynasty on the screen. "They turned a great conquest into a poison that's weighing down their whole empire."
Destroying a kingdom was easy enough. Ruling it was a whole different story. Su Dingfang had taken Baekje with a hundred thousand men. But keeping it under control? No matter how many soldiers they posted there, they couldn't erase the anger of people who'd lost their homeland.
Liu Bei made a silent promise to himself. He'd use this future history like a mirror. When the day came for him to march into the northwest, he would not, could not, repeat the terrible mistakes of the past.
He'd lead with kindness, not just swords.
[Light Screen]
[Back in the Tang Dynasty, nobody in the central government cared about a little looting on the faraway Korean peninsula. Not one bit.
Su Dingfang didn't care.
Emperor Li Zhi cared even less.
The mood in the capital was buzzing. Especially after Su Dingfang put on a huge, over the top show to present the captured Baekje royal family at the Imperial Ancestral Temple.
Li Zhi looked at the geopolitical map and made a bold announcement.
The Emperor said the time was finally right. It was time to wipe the stubborn Goguryeo empire off the map for good.
The timeline was crazy fast. Su Dingfang marched into Luoyang with his royal prisoners in November. By December, Li Zhi was already handing out new military jobs with a big smile.
The deployment was massive. Su Dingfang got named Supreme Commander of the Liaodong route. Fierce Turkic general Qibi Heli took charge of the Paegang route. Liu Boying was given the Pyongyang route. Cheng Mingzhen got the Loufang route. Four huge, heavily armed forces were ordered to attack all at once. Goguryeo was marked to die.
With this giant war machine getting going at the front, the logistical work in the back had to kick into high gear. That meant corrupt Chancellor Li Yifu suddenly got very busy. And unfortunately for Liu Rengui, that meant he was about to have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Ever since the Sui Dynasty tried their disastrous campaigns against the Korean peninsula decades earlier, the main way to move grain had always been by sea. Supplies were hauled over land to the coastal province of Shandong. From there, they were loaded onto big transport fleets and sailed across the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea straight into Liaodong.
After being outmaneuvered politically and demoted by Li Yifu, Liu Rengui was now serving as the local governor of Qingzhou. His job specifically included managing this exact naval supply chain.
Seeing a perfect chance to crush his enemy for good, Chancellor Li Yifu couldn't wait to issue a direct, totally unreasonable order.
The command from the capital was final. It said the military situation was super urgent. Liu Rengui was told to launch the grain fleets toward Liaodong and the Korean peninsula right now. Not a single second to waste!
When Liu Rengui read the official message in his office, his jaw dropped. He thought the Chancellor had lost his mind. He immediately sent back a logical, fiery protest.
His argument was simple common sense for anyone who goes to sea. It was the dead of winter. The coastal waters were a total nightmare of freezing winds and huge storms. Ordering wooden transport ships to sail now was basically asking everyone to die. Was Li Yifu trying to kill him and his men?
Liu Rengui's reply was completely logical, scientifically sound, and absolutely useless. Li Yifu stopped the report before it ever reached the Emperor.
Working under Li Yifu's secret okay, the central government started sending Liu Rengui more and more frantic orders. The words got angrier and angrier, shifting from telling him what to do to threatening him.
Trapped with no way out and a sword at his throat, Liu Rengui had no choice. He gritted his teeth and ordered the transport ships out of the harbor and into the freezing winter sea.
The result was exactly what he predicted. Total disaster.
The fleet sailed straight into a massive winter storm. Ships flipped over. Thousands of tons of vital military grain vanished into dark water. Countless civilian sailors and conscripted workers drowned or disappeared in the freezing waves.
With the trap perfectly set, Li Yifu moved fast. Way too fast. He skipped all the usual rules and told Emperor Gaozong directly about the huge logistical mess. Furious that his big war was delayed, Li Zhi personally named an investigating censor called Yuan Yishi to go to Shandong and sort out the case.
Now, pay attention to the political background here. Legendary Zhangsun Wuji had just been taken down completely and kicked out of power. Without that big political heavyweight keeping him in check, Li Yifu was doing whatever he wanted. He didn't even try to hide his corruption anymore. Before Yuan Yishi left the capital, Li Yifu pulled him aside and laid it all out plain.
"If you fix this problem for me," Li Yifu promised with a slimy smile, "you'll never have to worry about getting promoted again. Ever."
Fully fired up by the promise of easy career success, Yuan Yishi arrived in Shandong and let loose a wave of psychological terror. He threw every single rule at Liu Rengui. He used every trick in the book to scare the old scholar and push him to commit suicide. A suicide would wrap up the case nice and neat and give Li Yifu his perfect win.
But Yuan Yishi badly underestimated his target. Liu Rengui was made of pure, unbreakable stubbornness.
Liu Rengui looked the scary imperial investigator in the eye and basically told him to go jump in a lake. He said he was a loyal servant of the state. He demanded that Tang Dynasty laws be followed exactly as written. If he was going to die, it would be by official execution. Not a coward's rope in a dark cell.
Because Liu Rengui flat out refused to play along and die quietly, the case blew up big time. It was dragged all the way back to Emperor Li Zhi's desk. What followed was a tough, intense legal fight that went on for half a month.
In the end, the court made its decision. Liu Rengui was stripped of all his ranks. He was officially reduced to a commoner and exiled to the freezing frontlines of Liaodong to serve as a low level soldier in the army.
And that's exactly how, completely by accident, stuck in a miserable military camp on the Korean peninsula, Liu Rengui suddenly realized something amazing.
He realized he was actually a tactical genius.]
Inside Ganlu Hall, Liu Rengui stood quietly with the same calm look he'd worn from the start.
There was no joy, anger, or frustration on his face, like nothing could shake him.
In truth, he was still trying to process everything he'd just seen.
Being set up by a corrupt chancellor, ordered to send a whole fleet into a winter storm, stripped of all his titles, and exiled to Liaodong as a regular soldier sounded less like his future and more like a crazy dream.
A small, self-deprecating smile crossed his lips.
"My future certainly seems... busy."
Then another thought hit him.
"Did that light screen really say I have the talent of a general?" His tone was confused, not excited.
"It did?" Li Shimin leaned forward, clearly interested. "Has anyone else ever noticed that talent?"
Liu Rengui bowed respectfully before answering.
"Before today, only Your Majesty."
Li Shimin let out an awkward laugh. Just moments earlier, he'd praised Liu Rengui with total confidence, expecting the man to be deeply moved. Instead, Liu Rengui took the compliment as calmly as if they were talking about tomorrow's weather.
"Before Your Majesty," Liu Rengui went on, "the Duke of Lu once said I had the bearing of a famous commander."
The moment those words were out, everyone's eyes turned to Hou Junji. The Duke of Lu wished he could vanish right then. He bowed his head so low it almost touched the floor, his forehead practically buried in the polished wood as sweat poured off him.
Zhangsun Wuji chuckled softly.
"It seems the old Hou has quite an eye for hidden talent."
Several ministers looked away to hide their smiles. They all remembered what really happened. Hou Junji had almost executed Liu Rengui over a silly argument, only to blurt out that he looked like a great commander in the middle of it. It was still one of the more embarrassing stories around the court.
Seeing that Li Shimin was still upset about what the Light Screen had shown about the future court, Du Ruhui decided to offer a more balanced view.
"There's at least one good thing we can take from this," he said, gesturing toward the screen. "If Chancellor Li Yifu really had total power, Liu Zhengze would never have survived. Losing an entire grain fleet during war usually means the death penalty, but he got away without being killed. That tells us there were still officials willing to uphold the law and stop one man from taking over everything."
Li Shimin nodded slowly. That observation helped ease his mind, if only a little. Even so, thinking that his own son would one day trust a man like Li Yifu so much still left a bad taste in his mouth.
"What a poisonous man," Li Shimin muttered. "He almost ruined one of my loyal ministers."
Liu Rengui shifted awkwardly at the praise. Before he could respond, Du Ruhui smiled and gently corrected the Emperor.
"Strictly speaking, Your Majesty, during the Zhenguan era, Liu Zhengze only reached the rank of Supervising Secretary."
Everyone in the hall understood what that meant. A Supervising Secretary was respectable, but it wasn't exactly the rank of a long-time pillar of the empire. Calling Liu Rengui one of the court's most trusted ministers was, to put it nicely, a generous way of looking at things.
Li Shimin was speechless for a moment.
He glanced at Du Ruhui, hoping to find a way to argue back, but quickly saw there wasn't one. After clearing his throat, he replied with as much dignity as he could manage.
"That only proves I haven't put him in a position worthy of his real abilities yet."
Privately, though, another thought crossed his mind. If the Light Screen had never appeared, and if Liu Rengui really had beaten an imperial officer to death in broad daylight, he would almost certainly have been furious. Forget promoting him, he might have ordered punishment himself.
The thought was gone almost as soon as it came.
Looking at the quiet scholar standing before him, Li Shimin smiled.
"Zhengze has the bearing of a true gentleman," he said. "The amazing part is that someone who looks so scholarly managed to hide the qualities of a great battlefield commander so well."
Liu Rengui could only smile awkwardly. Getting such big praise from the greatest military ruler of the age left him more overwhelmed than honored.
Meanwhile, across the hall, Li Ji casually put a hand on Su Dingfang's shoulder and flashed him a knowing grin.
The meaning behind that smile was impossible to miss.
The universe gave you a perfect chance to be a hero, little brother, and you dropped the ball completely.
[Light Screen]
[The ultimate irony of history is that Liu Rengui's huge leap to military greatness depended entirely on Su Dingfang. Specifically, it depended on the massive, explosive mess Su Dingfang left behind before he sailed home.
The Tang army's brutal decision to sack Sabi set a really dark, toxic example.
Remember, the Tang Dynasty had brought in their neighbor Silla to fight as allies during the invasion. When Silla troops saw their imperial bosses happily looting the capital, they decided to join in too. They let loose their own wave of revenge against the Baekje people.
Now, in feudal warfare, starting a rebellion needs a leader to rally around. You need someone people will follow. The main reason Li Zhi and Su Dingfang weren't worried at all about Baekje fighting back was because they'd taken the entire royal family away. They packed everyone up and shipped them off to Luoyang.
Without a King, Prince, or even a distant royal relative left in the country, who could possibly lead a rebellion? Who had the right to raise an army?
Right at this super fragile moment in history, a brand new player jumped into the game. The island nation of Wa, what we call Japan today, decided it was their turn to act.
They had a huge secret weapon. A Baekje prince named Buyeo Pung, who'd been living in the Japanese court as a political hostage for years. The Japanese put him on a boat right away and sent him back to the peninsula to be their figurehead.
The one calling the shots in Japan at the time was Empress Kogyoku. As Japan's second female ruler, she was incredibly ambitious. The kind that sends chills down your spine.
She wasn't just looking to secure trade routes. Empress Kogyoku is known as the very first Japanese ruler to openly say she wanted to conquer the Chinese mainland.
After pushing through a series of aggressive internal changes called the Taika Reforms, Empress Kogyoku looked across the sea and made her move. She thought the perfect time to challenge the Tang Dynasty's control over the Korean peninsula had come. She didn't just give the Baekje rebels help with supplies. She said she'd lead her armies into battle herself!
The moment Prince Buyeo Pung stepped back onto Baekje land, the whole region blew up. Powerful local warlords who'd surrendered to the Tang earlier, guys like Heichi Changzhi, Guishi Fuxin, and Daochen, instantly tore up their peace deals. They rallied around the prince, raised their flags, and officially declared a holy war to bring their nation back.
Things on the Korean peninsula got worse fast. Total chaos.
So when Liu Rengui finally finished his miserable, freezing trip and got to his exile post as a regular soldier, he walked straight into a nightmare.
The intelligence reports he got were terrifying. The whole of Baekje was in open, violent rebellion. The grand Ungjin Commandery the Tang court had set up to rule the place basically only existed on paper.
The real situation was brutal: the Tang army was trapped, holding nothing except the heavily fortified walls of Sabi city.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, another crazy piece of news came in that same year.
Maybe as a late effect of the political chaos from Zhangsun Wuji's death in the capital, the man in charge of Ungjin Commandery, a high ranking official named Wang Wendu, suddenly died under really mysterious circumstances. He just dropped dead.
So let's run through the situation again. The Tang garrison in Baekje is completely surrounded by angry, radicalized people. They have no one leading them. Meanwhile, just to the north, the main Tang army is stuck in a brutal war of attrition with Goguryeo. A real meat grinder. That northern army can only survive if the supply lines through falling apart Baekje stay open.
Facing this total disaster, Emperor Li Zhi stared at the map in Chang'an. He had no options left. In a pure act of desperation, like throwing a hail mary pass, he wrote up an emergency imperial order.
The Emperor completely changed course. He officially pardoned exiled convict Liu Rengui, promoted him right away to Provincial Governor, and handed him full control over the entire burning mess that was the Ungjin Commandery.]