Zhang Zhongjing knelt at a low table, grinding herbs with steady, rhythmic strokes. The pestle clicked softly against the mortar, a sound that had followed him through decades of plagues and changing seasons. He paused, brushed fine green powder from his palms, and spoke.
"The Roman Empire's collapse feels eerily familiar," he said. "Like staring into a mirror at our own crumbling civilization."
Liu Bei looked up, startled. "Doctor, since when do you care about politics?"
"I don't," Zhang Zhongjing admitted. "But I know patterns. Both empires rose. Both grew fat. Both fell into chaos at the same time. Plague in the East. Plague in the West. Governments failed. Faith rushed in. It is the same story written on two scrolls."
"Are the plagues truly so alike?" Liu Bei asked.
"The symptoms differ," Zhang Zhongjing said. "But the logic is simple. A disease that bites hardest in freezing winter is cold-induced plague. Treatment follows the pattern."
He shook his head, eyes burning with something between admiration and frustration.
"What truly burns in my chest is envy. The future's medical knowledge is on another level entirely."
Zhuge Liang fanned himself slowly. "Doctor, you sound like a general who just found a formation that guarantees victory."
"Because I am a healer. Finding a better cure is my duty." Zhang Zhongjing turned to face him directly. "When this briefing ends, I am coming to you, Kongming. That six-step diagnostic method from the future? We will master it together."
Zhuge Liang smiled. "I am honored. Though I warn you, I am better at reading maps than meridians."
"And I am better with herbs than troop deployments," Zhang Zhongjing shot back, a faint smile cracking his weathered face. "We will balance each other. As for the greater medical marvels that follow? I dare not dream that far."
He settled back and picked up his pestle again.
"We cannot build a future hospital out of nothing. Medicine is like a child learning to move. Crawl first. Then walk. Then run. Rushing ahead is like yanking a sprout to make it grow. You only kill it."
The conversation shifted, and Liu Bei blinked so hard his eyebrows nearly vanished into his hairline.
"How? Am I reading it wrong, or did I mishear? Public food distribution?"
He leaned forward as if afraid the words might evaporate if he did not catch them quickly.
"You mean... the government just hands out food? To anyone?"
"It is true, my lord. You are not wrong at all. That is what the Light Screen says," Zhuge Liang replied.
"The Book of Rites says the world belongs to all under Heaven." Liu Bei scratched his head. "I never imagined anyone would take those words quite so literally."
Zhang Fei snorted. "Brother, they took it very literally. Like, 'here's your bread, now go away' literally."
"How does a state even afford such a thing?" Liu Bei asked, still processing the concept.
"Precisely why I am skeptical," Zhuge Liang said. "If every citizen received unlimited free bread, the empire would drown in debt before the first shipment arrived. There must be limits. Citizenship. Status. Registration. Otherwise every tribe and kingdom for a thousand li would pack their bags and move to Rome tomorrow."
Pang Tong leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Hahaha... why farm when you can eat for free?"
"Exactly," Zhuge Liang said.
"And the grain itself?" Pang Tong pressed. "It does not grow from the emperor's seal. Farmers must plant it. Harvest it. Transport it. Store it. Feed a city of a million mouths? That requires organization on a scale I can barely imagine."
Zhang Fei raised a hand. "Wait wait wait. So you're telling me... these Romans had free bread... and they still collapsed?"
"Yide," Liu Bei said tiredly, "that is not the point."
"I'm just saying!" Zhang Fei threw his hands up. "If I had free bread, I'd be pretty happy. I wouldn't overthrow anyone."
Jian Yong patted his shoulder. "That's because you have the brain of a loyal dog, Yide. Not everyone is like you."
"Is that a compliment or an insult?"
"Speak to my hand, Yide."
Zhuge Liang stood and walked to the back of the tent, carefully unfurling a large, hand-drawn map. This was the map he had smuggled out of the Sichuan basin, guarded with his life, and hidden in Hanzhong until Guanzhong was secure.
His finger traced the coastline south of the Italian peninsula.
"Look here. The climate is warm. Similar to Jiaozhou, where they harvest rice in fifty days. Or the fertile plains of India. These southern lands must have grown enough surplus to feed an empire."
His finger shifted to the great inland sea at the center.
"And this. The Mediterranean. Nearly eight hundred miles from north to south. Ships carrying grain across calm waters instead of carts groaning over mountains or boats fighting river currents."
Zhang Fei squinted at the map as if the ink might rearrange itself under his gaze. "That's... that's like having a river in the middle of your empire. But bigger."
"Much bigger," Zhuge Liang agreed. "That is not logistics. That is cheating."
"So they just..." Zhang Fei gestured vaguely at the map. "...sailed their food everywhere?"
"Essentially. It gives them an advantage no amount of manpower can match."
Zhang Fei sat back, looking genuinely impressed. "Huh. So that's why they had time to invent free bread. They weren't busy dying of hunger."
Liu Bei pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yide, please."
"I'm just connecting dots, Brother!"
"Then that settles it," Jian Yong announced, standing up and stretching his arms over his head.
Liu Bei looked over, confused. "Settles what?"
"West! All the way to the ruins of Rome! There was a monk named Xuanzang who walked to India for sacred scriptures, right? I will be the secular version. I will bring back their maps, their engineering, their farming methods. Anything that can help us build a stronger Han."
The tent fell still for a heartbeat.
Zhang Fei broke it first. "...You want to walk to Rome."
"Yes."
"That's like... that's thousands of li, Jian Yong. Through deserts. Mountains. Bandits everywhere. Definitely wild animals."
"I am willing to die trying," Jian Yong said simply. "If someone has to go, why not me?"
Zhuge Liang shook his head, though amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Jian Yong, that is thousands of li across deserts and mountains. You would be lucky to survive the first month."
"Then I'll be lucky," Jian Yong said, completely unfazed.
Liu Bei sighed, the long, suffering kind that had become his specialty over years of dealing with stubborn retainers. "Jian Yong... we haven't even secured Guanzhong yet. Can we focus on one empire at a time?"
"Naturally, my lord. The Central Plain comes first. Rome can wait a little longer," Jian Yong said, sitting back down.
"You know," Zhang Fei said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "the more we hear about this Rome, the more it sounds like us."
"How so, Yide?" Pang Tong asked.
"Empire rises. Empire gets big. Empire gets arrogant. Plague hits. Government falls apart. Priests and prophets step in. Different gods. Same story." He paused, then grinned. "They really are our brother from another mother."
Pang Tong nodded grimly. "I cannot argue with that. When the state cannot protect its people, people look for protection elsewhere."
"And usually find it in places that do not pay taxes," Zhuge Liang added dryly.
"Exactly!" Zhang Fei slapped his knee so hard the table rattled. "Kongming gets it!"
Liu Bei looked between them, concern furrowing his brow. "So what are you saying? That we're destined to fall like Rome?"
"I'm saying..." Zhang Fei scratched his head, trying to find the right words. "...that maybe we should learn from their mistakes. Before we make the same ones."
"Deep," Jian Yong said, nodding sagely. "Very deep."
"Shut up, Jian Yong."
"I'm being sincere!"
"You're never sincere."
"That's hurtful, yide.. Hahahhaha."
Liu Bei rubbed his temples and let out another long breath. "Alright. Enough. We have a briefing to finish."
"Fine," Zhang Fei grumbled. "But I'm keeping an eye on Jian Yong. If he actually tries to walk to Rome, I'm tying him to a tree."
"I would like to see you try," Jian Yong said cheerfully.
"OH, IT'S ON—"
"Yide!" Liu Bei snapped. "Sit. Down."
Zhang Fei sat.
Jian Yong smirked.
Zhuge Liang fanned himself and pretended not to see any of it.
---
Meanwhile, in the Ganlu Hall of the Tang Dynasty, Sun Simiao stared intently at the glowing screen, his brow furrowed deep in thought.
"Emperor Cheng of the Western Han was notoriously incompetent," he muttered, half to himself. "How on earth did a man that foolish manage to arrest and imprison Gan Zhongke? That man was the founding prophet of the Way of Supreme Peace. A terrifying movement."
Sun Simiao shook his head, still unable to make sense of it.
"Emperor Cheng neglected state affairs entirely. He let his relatives seize power and paved the way for Wang Mang to usurp the throne. He even killed his own infant sons just to please a favorite concubine. And in his later years he chased immortality and begged every charlatan for pills. He was a disaster of a ruler."
He paused, then continued.
"Gan Zhongke, on the other hand, was brilliant. He wrote the foundational texts, blending Confucian prophecy with Daoist teachings. He built a following people would die for. And yet he died in a prison cell on the orders of that fool. It makes no sense at all."
Li Shimin listened and let out a dark, knowing laugh.
"Gan Zhongke made one fatal mistake," the Emperor said. "He claimed to hold the Mandate of Heaven. He tried to use divine authority to intimidate the throne."
He leaned forward on his golden throne, his voice firm and clear.
"A ruler who spends his days drowning in wine and women may be useless at governing. But he understands power better than anyone. The moment a peasant claims to speak for Heaven itself, the emperor sees a direct threat to his throne. And he strikes. Every time."
Sun Simiao fell quiet, absorbing the logic.
Li Shimin leaned back again, changing the subject.
"I am far more curious about the West," he said. "What is this Byzantine Empire? How does it relate to the ruins of Rome?"
He nodded to himself, already making plans.
"Once our shipyards are built and the ocean routes are safe, we will send historians west. We will document these empires and compile what we learn into a great encyclopedia. Who knows? Maybe it will surprise those people in the future."
Then he shook his head, amused.
"As for their claim that Rome handed out free food to everyone? I do not believe it. No treasury could sustain that forever. There must have been limits. But it does make me wonder exactly how they managed it."
[Lightscreen]
[While the ancient plagues ravaged the global population, a secondary toxic trend took root at the same time.
In the East, this substance forged the iconic, deeply unhinged image of the Wei and Jin Dynasty scholars. It became a cultural obsession among wealthy aristocrats. They consumed it constantly, allowing the chemical cocktail to poison the land for a thousand brutal years. The historical records remember it as Cold-Food Powder, or Wushi San.
In the West, they gave their toxic obsession a more majestic title. They called it the Universal Antidote. The primary ingredient is something modern history students know all too well: opium.
The exact origin of Cold-Food Powder is impossible to track down. It most likely originated from grifters and folk alchemists wandering the late Han Dynasty. Some modern historians even suspect it was originally invented by Yellow Turban cultists.
The name itself, Cold-Food Powder, is a huge clue. It literally translates to Five-Mineral Powder. It was a crude mixture of toxic heavy metals, including arsenic. That painfully blunt, literal naming convention doesn't match the poetic style of elite alchemists hired by the imperial court.
The drug became popular entirely because of the typhoid plagues. When the late Han plagues struck, the primary symptom was horrific, bone-chilling cold. Patients felt like they were freezing to death from the inside out.
Consuming Cold-Food Powder triggers a violent spike in body temperature. The heavy metal poisoning makes the body run incredibly hot. A short-term side effect is intense neurological confusion. This hallucinogenic brain fog became addictive to stressed, terrified aristocratic scholars.
Do you guys remember the famous Wei-Jin scholar we talked about a few videos ago? The lunatic who aggressively asked his guests why they were hiding inside his pants?
That is the textbook definition of a Cold-Food Powder overdose.
Consuming this toxic rock mixture makes your internal temperature spike dangerously high. Therefore, for elite scholars of the Wei and Jin eras, stripping entirely naked and running around the courtyard screaming was considered the height of intellectual fashion. It was a sign of a free spirit.
Long-term consumption resulted in severe, chronic heavy metal poisoning. The addict's skin would become thin, blistered, and hyper-sensitive. Wearing normal clothing physically hurt them. The fabric felt like sandpaper. Therefore, holding academic debates while entirely naked became a mandatory lifestyle choice for the elites. This addictive poison circulated through the upper echelons of society for the entire duration of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, causing untold brain damage.
The history of opium in the West is vastly older and much darker. According to western archaeological records, there is solid evidence of poppy cultivation dating all the way back to 4200 BC.
In the Euphrates River valley, one of the cradles of human civilization, researchers found 5,400-year-old evidence of poppy farming. The ancient humans living there literally called the poppy the Joy Plant.
Fast forward to 3700 years ago. The medical professionals of the mighty Assyrian Empire firmly believed that the poppy flower could cure any disease on the planet. The Assyrians loved to mix botanical health drinks. Archaeologists have cataloged 115 different Assyrian beverage recipes that feature opium as the star ingredient.
Because it temporarily relieved severe pain, the poppy was worshipped as a miracle from the gods. The ancient Greeks stamped the poppy flower onto their gold coins. The ancient Romans carved images of the poppy onto their tombstones. The entire western world was culturally obsessed with the drug.
The ancient doctors genuinely thought it was a cure-all. For example, the Ebers Papyrus, a medical text written in ancient Egypt 3,500 years ago, strictly advises using crushed poppy paste to treat open wounds. It also casually recommends feeding opium directly to screaming infants to make them sleep through the night.
Because of its intense hallucinogenic properties, the poppy flower was rapidly integrated into religious rituals. The drug was draped in a cloak of divine holiness.
Around the year 120 AD, a monarch in Central Asia known as the King of Pontus created the very first prototype of the Universal Antidote. Local legends claimed his special chemical mixture made a man immune to all known poisons.
This recipe eventually migrated to ancient Rome. The infamous, deeply psychotic Roman Emperor Nero personally modified the formula. He increased the opium content. This hyper-charged narcotic immediately became the exclusive, daily medication of the Roman Emperors. They called it Theriac.
Therefore, it makes perfect historical sense that the brilliant Roman doctor Galen used amounts of poppy juice to upgrade the Theriac recipe. He fed this potent narcotic directly to Emperor Marcus Aurelius, desperately hoping the opium would cure the plague. It did not.
This powerful opium cocktail was also administered to Commodus, the final Emperor of the Antonine Dynasty. The medical results of that treatment remain unknown, though Commodus did eventually go completely insane.
If you track the drug through European history, you will find a list of famous monarchs who were deeply addicted to Theriac. Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, Henry the Eighth, and Queen Elizabeth the First were all loyal, heavy consumers of this opium product.
And if the kings were addicted, the commoners were worse. The general public already had a long-standing tradition of consuming raw opium products. When the plagues and endless civil wars shattered the European economy, Roman peasants faced the same psychological trauma as Han Dynasty peasants. They desperately needed an escape.
This cultural addiction guaranteed that hallucinogenic opium products remained active in western medical practices all the way until the seventeenth century.
It was only in the seventeenth century that western doctors finally recognized the horrific dual nature of the drug. Yes, the opium temporarily killed the physical pain. But it simultaneously guaranteed severe, inescapable chemical addiction, eventually destroying the patient's body entirely.
Centuries later, this chemical addiction was weaponized. It became the ultimate tool for colonial conquest. By illegally dumping refined opium into foreign markets, colonial empires could rapidly drain the target nation's silver reserves. More importantly, it instantly turned millions of native citizens into helpless addicts, destroying their ability to organize military resistance. This is the exact strategy that triggered the Opium Wars, a conflict that inflicted unforgettable trauma upon modern China.
Today, refined opium products are still active in western society. Cold-Food Powder, on the other hand, completely vanished into the river of history centuries ago.
The ultimate irony is that the total eradication of that ancient Chinese drug was dependent on global climate change.]
The stillness in Ganlu Hall was so heavy you could almost reach out and touch it.
Sun Simiao had spent years lecturing anyone who would listen about the dangers of Cold-Food Powder. He was practically a one-man campaign against the stuff. His constant nagging had pushed the aristocrats to mostly stop using it in public. A few still indulged at private gatherings, but it was no longer something people bragged about.
Now, as the Light Screen played on, the Tang ministers all realized Sun Simiao had been right the whole time. If anything, he had understated just how dangerous it really was.
The host was clear about the devastation these substances caused. But the details were vague. How exactly did the powder destroy the body? How did a simple plant extract cripple an entire nation the way opium did during those wars?
The court had more questions than answers.
Li Shimin turned his gaze toward Sun Simiao. Every eye in the hall followed.
The King of Medicine took a slow, steadying breath.
"Give me two months," he said firmly. "I will show you exactly how toxic Cold-Food Powder truly is. Step by step."
The tension in the room softened. The ministers resumed their low murmuring, but their respect for the old physician had only deepened.
Sun Simiao shuffled closer to the Emperor's throne and lowered his voice.
"Your Majesty," he whispered. "I require monkeys. Several of them."
Li Shimin nodded immediately. He understood perfectly. Monkeys were close enough to humans in body and constitution. Test the effects on them first.
The Emperor waved a hand.
"Several will not be nearly enough for proper research," he whispered back. "I will have the logistics officers secure at least forty or fifty primates for your laboratory."
Sun Simiao blinked, not sure whether to be amused or alarmed. He bowed deeply and thanked the Emperor all the same.
Li Shimin felt a surge of pride. It was a strange thing to be proud of, but the fact that they needed monkeys spoke well of his reign. The prisons were practically empty. There were barely any condemned criminals left to use for such purposes.
Sun Simiao frequently needed bodies for anatomical study. In years past, prison officials would expedite executions and deliver the bodies straight to the Imperial Medical Academy. But under the Zhenguan era, they had simply run out of death row inmates.
If the prisons were still full of violent rebels and traitors, Sun Simiao would not have needed a single monkey. He would have simply used the condemned men for his experiments.
Li Shimin leaned back in his throne, his mind turning over everything he had just seen.
The host had drawn a direct comparison between the mineral powders of China and the poppy sap of the West. Li Shimin did not know what a poppy plant looked like. He had no idea how the sap was harvested or prepared. But the tone of the narration left no room for doubt. Both substances were equally destructive.
He had seen the effects of Cold-Food Powder with his own eyes. Wealthy scholars acting like raving lunatics. Flying into violent rages. Screaming at nothing. Tearing off their clothes and running through the streets. It was pathetic and repulsive.
He found it hard to wrap his head around the idea that entire civilizations could spend thousands of years using something so dangerous. How could people normalize behavior that made them lose all sense of self?
Then something the host had said gave him pause.
Li Shimin tapped a finger against the armrest of his throne.
The narration had stated plainly that modern doctors knew the drug was addictive and harmful. Yet people still used it. It remained popular despite knowing the risks.
That fact alone told him how powerful it really was. It could override a person's own survival instincts.
The Emperor drew a sharp breath.
He suddenly found himself impatient for Sun Simiao to finish his research.
A small amount of Cold-Food Powder could make a person feel warm even in the depths of winter. Regular use could bring on bursts of wild energy that fools mistook for inspiration or genius. But what happened when someone took it every single day? What did the final stages of this so-called addiction actually look like?