Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui's enthusiastic approval put Li Shimin in excellent spirits.
Their reasoning was hard to argue with. They were the Great Tang, after all, destined to become a sprawling power. Surely a state of that scale ought to possess a monumental literary work to match its ambitions.
Li Shimin leaned forward on his throne, warming to the idea.
"Think about it. Our early years are defined by martial virtue. We have generals and battlefield heroes in every corner of this court, and later generations will talk about them endlessly. But eventually, all those sword cuts and cavalry charges start to sound the same."
He waved a hand.
"Do not misunderstand me. I am proud of our military achievements. I simply do not want posterity to look back at the Great Tang and say, 'Ah yes, excellent cavalry. Very impressive cavalry.'"
Fang Xuanling lowered his head to hide a smile.
Li Shimin continued. "A dynasty cannot survive on spears alone. I want this reign to reach equally towering heights in civil administration, scholarship, and literary culture."
He sighed, and a faint note of envy crept into his voice.
"Every time the host speaks of the poets of the High Tang, I find myself longing for them. A Poet Immortal. A Poet Sage. The ages to come speak of these men with such reverence that even emperors seem to become secondary characters in their stories."
He shook his head.
"But those gifted minds will not be born for several more decades."
His expression soured.
"To make matters worse, the host once mentioned that the Poet Immortal Li Bai will be born in Suyab."
He turned toward Du Ruhui.
"We have not even conquered that city yet!"
Du Ruhui stroked his beard thoughtfully, clearly amused by his Emperor's complaint.
"Your Majesty, why wait for poets who have not even been born to define your legacy?"
Li Shimin studied him.
"The Great Tang itself is already the greatest poem ever written," Du Ruhui continued. "You have the resources of an entire dynasty at your fingertips. You have scholars, historians, craftsmen, officials, merchants, generals, and enough wealth to make half the world jealous."
He smiled.
"Why not create something that captures this very moment?"
Li Shimin blinked.
Then a slow smile spread across his face.
Why need a Poet Immortal to leave a literary legacy? This majestic Great Tang was, in itself, the greatest poem!
"You are right, Keming."
He leaned forward, his eyes brightening.
"Why should I sit around waiting for some future genius to secure my place in history?"
Du Ruhui's smile widened.
"We will compile a great encyclopedia," Li Shimin declared. "We will gather the collective wisdom of the world and turn it into a literary monument of epic proportions."
His voice grew increasingly enthusiastic as the idea took hold.
"I want everything. History, geography, medicine, agriculture, engineering, mathematics, astronomy, military affairs, philosophy, literature, music, law, administration. If knowledge exists, I want it recorded."
Fang Xuanling exchanged a glance with Du Ruhui.
Neither man spoke.
Both were beginning to realize what they had just unleashed.
Li Shimin continued without noticing.
"I want to capture the brilliance of this Zhenguan era and preserve it for all the ages to come. Let them open these volumes hundreds of years from now and see exactly what our civilization knew, what our scholars achieved, and how our empire was governed."
He smiled broadly.
"I want my descendants to open those books and immediately feel the weight of the age they inherited."
Fang Xuanling finally raised a cautious hand.
"Your Majesty."
"Yes?"
"How many volumes?"
Li Shimin paused.
He looked at Du Ruhui. Du Ruhui looked at him.
Fang Xuanling immediately regretted asking.
While Li Shimin dreamed of encyclopedias, Ma Zhou was experiencing something close to an existential crisis.
This was his first time truly watching the magical Lightscreen, and his mind was struggling to keep up. There was no gentle introduction for new viewers, no explanation of how the strange device worked, and certainly no consideration for the mental health of a young official seeing thousands of years of history casually revealed before his eyes.
The Lightscreen dropped one historical bombshell after another and expected everyone to just roll with it. No big deal. Just another Tuesday afternoon.
Ma Zhou was still trying to process the implications when Sun Simiao, standing nearby, noticed his distress and leaned over with a kind expression.
"It is always like this the first time you watch the Lightscreen," the physician said.
Ma Zhou nodded. "This... this is a window into the future?"
"Indeed. Young scholars thousands of years from now discuss our history as casually as we might discuss yesterday's weather."
Ma Zhou swallowed hard.
"Then... if they mention a dynasty that does not yet exist..."
"It means that dynasty rose to power after the Great Tang eventually collapsed," Sun Simiao finished gently.
Ma Zhou felt cold sweat spreading beneath his robes.
Hearing someone casually confirm the inevitable collapse of the Tang Dynasty while sitting in the presence of Emperor Taizong was enough to make any newly appointed official reconsider his career choices.
He glanced nervously at the Emperor, expecting an explosion of rage.
Instead, Li Shimin just grunted in annoyance.
Ma Zhou blinked.
He looked around.
Nobody else seemed to care.
Apparently, the fall of the Tang Dynasty was just another Tuesday for these people.
Ma Zhou took a slow breath and forced himself to calm down. There was no point in trying to unravel every terrifying implication at once. If the Lightscreen wanted to destroy his understanding of the universe, it could do so one revelation at a time.
He decided to focus on the content.
The moment the Lightscreen started talking about compiling encyclopedias, Ma Zhou's attention sharpened.
As a man who had clawed his way out of poverty through books and eventually claimed the highest rank in the imperial examinations, Ma Zhou held literature in near-religious reverence.
So when the host casually described the great literary project of the Qing Dynasty, his expression shifted from curiosity to outright horror.
"Half compiled and half destroyed?"
His voice trembled with genuine outrage.
"How can anyone call that compiling a book? That is cultural butchery!"
Li Shimin heard him but wisely decided not to comment.
Sun Simiao coughed into his hand and leaned closer.
"The dynasty that compiled this particular encyclopedia," he whispered, carefully choosing his words, "was established by a foreign people from the northeast. They entered the Central Plains and eventually established their own rule over the Han people."
Ma Zhou's mouth snapped shut.
The effect was immediate.
His mind flashed back to the history of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, to an age when foreign warlords and rival regimes had torn the realm apart.
He remembered the accounts of starving peasants filling the roads, refugees wandering through ruined countryside, and ordinary people suffering beneath one conquering army after another.
In its place came a heavy sense of dread.
The distant era suddenly seemed much less attractive.
Meanwhile, Li Shimin's expression had also become somewhat stiff.
His discomfort, however, had little to do with the foreign dynasty of the future.
He was staring at the quotation from Emperor Wen of Wei, Cao Pi, displayed prominently on the Lightscreen.
'The ancient legends of Emperor Shun and Emperor Yu peacefully passing the throne to one another... I finally understand exactly how that worked.'
Li Shimin shifted slightly in his seat.
When he had been younger, he had read the official records and openly mocked Cao Pi for his shamelessness. The man had taken the Han throne and then attempted to dress the seizure in the language of peaceful abdication.
Everyone understood what had really happened.
Zenrang, the supposedly voluntary transfer of power, was often little more than political theater performed after military force had already decided the matter.
One did not even need to go back to the legendary age of Yao and Shun to see the pattern.
Wang Mang had done much the same thing when he usurped the Han Dynasty. He had claimed to possess a mysterious golden box containing Heaven's mandate and presented his seizure of power as something he had been compelled to accept.
Li Shimin had always found such behavior ridiculous.
If a man wanted the throne, then at least have the courage to admit that he wanted it.
Instead, these men wrapped ambition in ceremonies, divine omens, sacred prophecies, and solemn speeches about the will of Heaven.
Li Shimin had always considered himself above such hypocrisy.
And the fact that the seat he now occupied had eventually been handed to him through the formal abdication of his father, Emperor Gaozu.
Li Shimin slowly became aware of an unpleasant problem.
If he judged Cao Pi by the harshest possible standard, he would have to apply the same standard to himself.
The irony was thick enough to spread on bread.
Fang Xuanling, who had been watching him carefully, leaned toward Du Ruhui.
"His Majesty looks... constipated."
Du Ruhui followed his gaze.
The moment he understood why, the corners of his mouth twitched.
"You do not need to be a genius to figure that one out. Cao Pi's words struck close to home, did they not?"
"Peaceful abdication," Fang Xuanling murmured, struggling to keep a straight face. "Such a civilized method of transferring power."
"Indeed," Du Ruhui replied solemnly. "Our Emperor's path was famously civilized."
He paused.
"Very famous for..."
Before he could finish, Fang Xuanling reached over and clamped a hand over Du Ruhui's mouth.
"Can we please talk about something else?"
Du Ruhui nodded, his eyes still sparkling with mischief.
The two prime ministers exchanged a look.
Neither man was foolish enough to bring up the subject directly in front of the Emperor.
There were certain historical events that were best appreciated from a safe distance.
Standing off to the side, Sun Simiao observed the entire throne room with amusement.
Ma Zhou was staring into space with the expression of a young scholar who had just discovered that the world ahead was both terrifying and extremely badly organized.
Emperor Taizong was sitting with the rigid dignity of a man who had just discovered an argument against Cao Pi that unfortunately worked against himself.
And beside him, two prime ministers were doing their absolute best not to laugh.
Sun Simiao lowered his gaze to his notebook.
He had learned many useful things from the Lightscreen today.
He was beginning to suspect that one of them was this:
Never criticize another emperor's peaceful abdication too confidently when your own seat came with a rather complicated backstory.
[Lightscreen]
[The Great Plague of the twenty-second year of Jian'an had this funny little quirk the ancients called "Chasing the Cold." Thanks to the warmer, stickier climate down south, it never caused the same level of apocalyptic tragedy as it did on the northern plains.
But the plague spreading out from Ruxu acted like the most precise assassin imaginable. It slipped through Eastern Wu's defenses and took out one very specific, devastating target. It claimed the life of the forty-six-year-old Lu Su.
And just like that, the geopolitical sky over Jiangdong went dark.
Lu Su was arguably the most outstanding political strategist in Jiangdong during the late Han period.
This man, recorded in historical texts as heroic and generous, was the original architect of the Sun-Liu alliance and the actual guy who kept that fragile pact alive through years of screaming matches and diplomatic chaos.
He had the political vision to persuade Sun Quan to lend Jingzhou to Liu Bei, creating a joint buffer along the Yangtze that made Cao Cao drop his pen in shock when he heard the news.
Later, after Liu Bei took Yizhou and the balance of power shifted, Lu Su was the one who rode out to the legendary Single Sword Meeting. He stood face to face with a heavily armed Guan Yu, blending military deterrence with diplomatic reason so smoothly it should have been taught in political science classes. His bold negotiation directly led to the Xiang River Pact, temporarily saving the alliance from blowing apart.
For us modern folks, world history is a compulsory subject. We might not know every single detail of the World Wars, but we generally get the big picture. This whole fighting without breaking thing is how political alliances actually work. Allies scheme against each other, secure their own borders, and jockey for leverage behind closed doors. But they never actually break the alliance while the primary enemy is still a threat.
This is advanced geopolitics. And Lu Su, over a thousand years ago, was playing this game with absolute mastery. The man was basically a walking international relations textbook.
After his death, Lu Su was buried in Yueyang. Later generations wrote a couplet on the pillars of his memorial shrine:
Supporting the Emperor and exposing Cao's treachery, his vision surpassed Xun Yu.
Serving Wu while being close to the Han lineage, his heart was identical to Wuhou's.
The horizontal scroll read: Authority and Benevolence Universally Applied.
I personally believe this couplet is the best summary of Lu Su's life.
This general was not the pedantic, naive pushover portrayed in novels and operas. He was a stone-cold pragmatist who clearly recognized Jiangdong's weaknesses, maximized its benefits within limited resources, and always kept his eyes on the entire realm, executing his plans with unwavering determination.
After Lu Su, Jiangdong never produced another strategist who could see past the end of their own nose.
Just look at Hefei. Zhang Liao led a death squad of eight hundred elite soldiers in a desperate gamble, charging into a hundred thousand men and earning the name "Zhang the Eight Hundred."
Sun Quan attacked Hefei multiple times but could never cross it. He would gaze at Xuzhou and sigh, and from that point on, his grand ambitions slowly eroded away.
After Lu Su's passing, Sun Quan could hardly be called a monarch of great talent and bold vision anymore. Instead, he started looking more like a political opportunist and a rogue politician.
If Lu Su had not met his untimely end, he probably still would not have been able to stop Sun Quan and Lu Meng from plotting against their ally. After all, the massive Jiangdong forces were truly at their wit's end when facing Hefei. They needed to expand somewhere.
But at the very least, Lu Su would never have done something as humiliating as surrendering to Cao Cao just to backstab Guan Yu and curry favor.
He understood political mathematics. As an ally, Liu Bei's military strength was a known quantity and far from abundant.
Guan Yu's Northern Expedition, flooding the Seven Armies and shaking all of China, was indeed an unparalleled military achievement. But the actual scarcity of his troops, his overstretched supply lines, and the Cao army's three-sided encirclement meant the God of War was never going to push much further.
This kind of ally, scraping by from one meal to the next, was hardly a threat to Jiangdong. Rather, he was a tangible asset. His weaknesses and needs were laid bare for everyone to see. That is leverage.
A true grand strategist like Lu Su would have looked at the board and seen opportunity. Let Guan Yu cosplay the God of War in Jingzhou, drawing all of Cao Cao's attention and troops. Meanwhile, Jiangdong goes all out to bypass Hefei entirely, launch a surprise attack on Shouchun, and seize control of the Huai River basin. All while using grain and supplies to keep Guan Yu exactly where they needed him. That is the kind of world-shaping decision Lu Su would have made.
But unfortunately, history has no what ifs.
Two years after Lu Su's death, Lu Meng thought he was a genius with his White Robes Crossing the River sneak attack on his own ally. He captured and killed Guan Yu, then sent the severed head to Cao Cao like a flattering gift. In doing so, he earned himself a permanent reputation as a petty, treacherous villain.
Emperor Zhaolie sought revenge, mobilizing the entire nation's strength without regard for consequences, wishing to burn together with his enemy. The eight-hundred-mile fire of Yiling left him with eternal regret and a hatred that echoed through the millennia.
Heroes sighed in grief. Former relatives and allies ended up in mutually assured destruction, neither ever again able to pose even the slightest threat to the north.
Probably no one could have imagined it at the time, but after the great plague in the twenty-second year of Jian'an, the eventual defeat of Wu and Shu was already sealed.
When the late Ming thinker Wang Fuzhi read this history, he sighed with deep emotion:
Lu Su dies. Guan Yu falls. Cao Cao gets lucky. And Liu Bei is left alone. Alas, how tragic!]