Spoken to nothing but a wild dog..." Liu Bei murmured, the words lingering on his tongue.
Then he went quiet, eyes fixed on the flickering light of the divine screen, a bitterness slowly creeping up his throat.
For a ruler, nothing cut deeper than betraying the trust of someone loyal. Once that line was crossed, it was not just a mistake. It was a stain on one's name that no explanation could wash clean.
Zhang Fei, standing nearby, caught the shift in his sworn brother's expression. The silence dragged on just long enough to feel uncomfortable.
He scratched the back of his head, clearly not built for this kind of heavy mood, then spoke in his usual blunt way.
"Big brother, just give the order. I'll head over right now, grab that slick-tongued Li Miao, and drag him back here. You can tell him exactly what you think to his face."
Liu Bei let out a long breath, the heaviness in his chest loosening as a trace of amusement slipped through. He flicked his hand in dismissal.
"Sit down, Yide. You are making a fuss over nothing." He gave a quiet laugh, shaking his head. "He is a narrow-minded man, nothing more. Why should I waste my thoughts on someone like that?"
With the tension easing from Liu Bei's shoulders, Zhang Fei stepped in closer, grinning as he reached out, already offering to work the stiffness out of his brother's back.
"Didn't that lightscreen say it earlier?" Zhang Fei went on, tone casual but edged with meaning. "That unlucky Wei Yan had a score to settle with Yang Yi. So who's to say that whole 'wipe out three generations' order wasn't just Yang Yi taking the chance to settle his own grudges behind the scenes?"
Zhang Fei leaned in, lowering his voice as if that alone could make the argument sound more convincing.
"Look at it this way," he said, trying his best to dress it up nicely. "Doesn't this Adou sound like a benevolent ruler? The kind who could stand shoulder to shoulder with the sages of old?"
Liu Bei almost laughed.
Hearing Zhang Fei force that angle reminded him, for no good reason, of the so-called "refined" antics of Cao Pi, the Emperor of Literature of Wei. The memory was enough to make his temples ache. After a moment, he just shook his head and let out a quiet sigh.
"Adou is still too young," Liu Bei said, his voice softening as the humor faded. "Too easily influenced."
Zhuge Liang, who had been watching the exchange in silence, finally stepped forward. His expression was calm, his tone measured, as if he had been waiting for the right moment all along.
"My lord," he said gently, "if you are worried for the young master, why not send an escort to bring him, along with the two ladies, safely to Yizhou?"
"No," Liu Bei said. His voice was firm. "Let it be."
He gathered his thoughts and spoke slowly. "The Lightscreen said my son will be given the title An Le Gong. Duke of Peace and Comfort. A man is forged through hardship, and he finds his rest in peace. Perhaps that title, in the end, is not a mockery. It is simply the truth of his fate."
He paused, then straightened his back. "Yizhou has the treacherous mountain roads guarding its northern flank and the perilous passes sealing the east. It is a fortress that commands the great dangers of the world. And it holds a thousand li of fertile land. More than enough to stand on its own."
He rose to his feet. The soft and ghostly glow of the Light Screen played across his eyes.
"When Emperor Gaozu held Hanzhong, he did not rush straight into Shu. Liu Adou must learn to do the same."
His mind was set
"We must draft a letter to Yunchang and Shangxiang," Liu Bei said. "Tell them to discipline Adou with a heavy hand. No more spoiling him."
Since his big brother had already made up his mind, Zhang Fei let the matter drop. He did, however, mutter under his breath, still searching for a way to defend his nephew.
"And honestly, surrendering to the enemy at the very end might not even have been Adou's fault. It is far more likely that the men of Yizhou simply had remarkably weak spines."
Zhang Song, Fazang, and Liu Ba, all sitting nearby, exchanged bewildered glances.
What did he just say about their backbones?
Zhang Fei caught himself the moment the words left his mouth. His large hands flew up in a panic.
"Hey, calm down! I did not mean any of you! I was talking about that spineless scholar Qiao Zhou!"
[Lightscreen]
[Jiang Boyue is, without question, a subject utterly loyal to the Han. But more than that, he was a lonely hero.
The victorious Wei and Jin Dynasty needed a convenient target to attack, someone whose name they could drag through the mud to win over the former officials of Shu Han.
And those same Shu Han officials needed someone to shoulder the blame for the collapse of their state. Neither side had to think twice. Both arrived at the exact same answer. Jiang Wei was the perfect man to take the fall.
From the viewpoint of Wei and Jin, Jiang Wei was a traitor who had rebelled, surrendered, and then rebelled again. A criminal of the highest order.
From the viewpoint of the former Shu Han officials, Jiang Wei was a reckless warlord who had drained the nation's strength just to build a name for himself. A petty and ambitious man.
This is why the historical record paints Jiang Wei with the broad brush of ruin. He destroyed the state through endless war. That accusation clings to his name like a second skin.
Why was there no one left to speak for Jiang Wei when these accounts were written down?
Because they were all dead.
The descendants of Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei, Zhuge Liang, Huang Quan, Fu Tong, and Liu Bei all either died on the battlefield or took their own lives when the state fell.
Jiang Wei himself died fighting, his grand schemes crumbling to dust around him.
The root of Jiang Wei's lifelong tragedy was this. He carried the final wishes of Zhuge Liang in his heart and refused to set them down.
But here lies the bitter irony. Neither the Marquis Wu's final instructions nor the famous Chu Shi Biao ever mentioned Jiang Wei by name.
After the Marquis Wu passed, the two successors he appointed were both deeply pessimistic about the Northern Expeditions. Under those conditions, Jiang Wei had no choice but to fight alone, pressing forward until his dying breath.
After Fei Yi was assassinated, Jiang Wei was granted full military command. But the treacherous eunuch Huang Hao rose to power at the same moment, planting himself directly in Jiang Wei's path like a rooted thorn.
In the end, even after Liu Shan gave the official order to surrender, Jiang Wei still reached for one last desperate gamble. He meant to turn the darkened sun and moon back toward the light.
He poured out every last drop of his blood for the Han Dynasty.
And while his subjects were bleeding themselves dry for the cause, what was their ruler, Liu Shan, doing? He had been completely flattened by the sugar-coated hospitality of Cao Wei.
Compare the two lives of Liu Shan. The Emperor of Shu Han. Anle Gong, the Duke of Peace and Comfort under Wei and Jin. In which life did he know greater comfort? In which life did he taste more luxury? The answer is a painful one. Anle Gong had an infinitely better time.
Let's put it side by side, the daily lives of Wei's nobility and Shu's officials.
In Wei, Xiahou Dun held a fief of twenty-five hundred households. His relatives were granted another thousand, and all seven of his sons, along with two grandsons, were made marquises within the Pass.
Man Chong lived even better, drawing income from nine thousand six hundred households, with his descendants all inheriting noble rank.
Deng Ai went further still, his fief swelling to an astonishing twenty thousand households.
And above them all sat Emperor Cao Rui, who established eight separate music academies, each packed with thousands of performers. His harem numbered in the tens of thousands.
According to Wei's own records, the inner court alone required hundreds just to keep it in order, while thousands more practiced music and song day and night.
Now compare that to Ji Han.
"Frugal" would be a generous way to put it. "Barely scraping by" is closer to the truth.
Take the Marquis Wu himself. In one of his memorials, Zhuge Liang openly stated that his family owned only fifteen qing of rather poor farmland. According to the standards recorded in the Book of Jin, a first-rank official should have fifty qing, an eighth-rank official fifteen, and a ninth-rank official ten.
In other words, the Prime Minister of Shu lived at roughly the same level as Wei's lowest-ranking officials.
And that is before you factor in the northern aristocracy's favorite pastime of quietly absorbing more land whenever the opportunity arose. By comparison, even minor officials in Wei and Jin could end up better off than Zhuge Liang.
Was he just unusually strict with himself?
Not at all. Put him next to his colleagues, and he almost starts to look wealthy.
Fei Yi died without leaving behind any extra property. His sons wore plain cloth, ate simple meals without meat, and got around on foot because the family owned neither horses nor carriages.
Dong He dressed in coarse hemp all his life. When he died, everything in his household combined was not even enough to buy a single load of grain.
Jiang Wei kept no concubines, owned no private land, and lived in a modest residence provided by the state.
Deng Zhi had no farmland to his name. His family struggled so much that his wife often went hungry. After his death, there was almost nothing left.
Zhang Ni had it worst of all. Because he fell ill, the government forbade him from leading troops. He had to go to the Administrator of Guanghan to borrow money just to pay for his medical treatment before he was finally allowed to lead an expedition.
Under those conditions, even the emperor, Liu Shan, could hardly be called extravagant. The Records of the Three Kingdoms note that when he once considered taking a few more concubines, Dong Yun immediately stepped in and shut it down.
His reasoning was simple. The ancient standards allowed no more than twelve women in the inner court. Liu Shan had already reached the limit. What more could he possibly need?
In an environment like that, even if Adou had wanted to go astray, he simply did not have the means. As the old dramatizations like to show, no matter how foolish he might seem, the worst he could manage was playing with crickets.
Then he arrived in Luoyang.
And everything changed.
Sima Zhao granted Adou the title of duke, along with income from ten thousand households. It was not quite the excess enjoyed by Cao Pi or Cao Rui, but it still placed him far above the ordinary.
Fine robes, beautiful women, endless banquets, music every night. Those were just the basics.
Jade spittoons, lavish feasts, even the use of the Five Minerals Powder to heighten the mood, all of it was within easy reach, no need to think twice about the cost.
Compared to the harsh, frigid life he had known in Shu, it might as well have been another world entirely.]
On the divine lightscreen, the officials watched in silence as two completely different scenes unfolded side by side.
In one, Jiang Wei stood alone, white-haired and surrounded. With nothing but a single sword, he held the enemy at bay. His movements were sharp and precise, forcing the encircling soldiers to hesitate, none willing to be the first to step in. For a moment, he looked less like a man and more like something untouchable, a presence drifting across the battlefield.
But it could not last.
Outnumbered, spent, with no path left open, he steadied himself. Then, without another word, he turned the blade on himself.
"My plan has failed," he said quietly. "This is Heaven's will."
Rain began to fall.
A Wei official stepped forward, lowering his gaze as he reached out to close Jiang Wei's eyes, offering the fallen general a final measure of respect.
Then the scene changed.
The lightscreen shifted, and Liu Shan appeared.
Round-faced, relaxed, and dressed in rich, gleaming robes, he sat at ease while a group of graceful concubines danced before him. Wine in hand, he watched the performance with open satisfaction, as though the world beyond the hall had never existed.
Then he spoke, almost casually.
"I am happy here. I do not think of Shu."
The contrast could not have been sharper.
One man died in blood and ruin, clinging to a cause until the very end.
The other lived on, comfortable and untroubled, as if none of it had ever mattered.
Liu Bei froze where he sat, eyes wide, disbelief written plainly across his face.
Then the anger came.
It rose fast, hot and violent, with nowhere to go. A sharp metallic ring cut through the hall as he drew his sword and brought it down on the wooden table before him.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
The solid table did not last long. In a matter of moments, it was reduced to splintered wreckage.
The ministers flinched, some stepping back, others too stunned to move. Seeing their alarm, Liu Bei finally slowed, lifting a hand as if to steady the room, though his own strength had already begun to drain away.
"I am not angry at Adou," he said, breath uneven. "I am angry at this broken world."
He rose to his feet without sheathing the sword. Instead, he raised it to eye level and flicked the blade with his finger.
A clear hum rang out, cold and steady, echoing through the hall.
"From the day the three of us raised our banners," he continued, voice tightening, "we have seen enough men like Jiang Wei. Loyal men. Men who gave everything."
His tone sharpened.
"We swore that if we ever rebuilt the Han, men like them would never be driven into such desperate ends."
A pause.
Then a quiet exhale.
"And yet… look at what we have now."
He slid the sword back into its sheath. His gaze returned to the lightscreen, unreadable.
Of all the names that had appeared during the viewing of the Marquis Wu's shrine, one had left the deepest mark on him.
Zhang Ni.
Gravely ill, yet he had still led his troops into battle, leading his Flying Wudang Army to fight a bloody war against the enemy. He fought until the end, until there was nothing left to give. A man who met every measure of what it meant to be a true general.
And still, he could not even afford proper treatment to save his own life.
The more Liu Bei thought about it, the heavier it sat.
The names on that screen were not strangers. They were men who had fought for the Han, bled for it, held the line when everything else was falling apart. And yet, when it came to reward, there was almost nothing.
By now, the anger he had felt toward Liu Shan had faded, replaced by something quieter.
Was this really the boy's fault?
A child who grew up chasing crickets, thrown into a city like Luoyang, drowning in wealth and indulgence. How was he supposed to resist that?
Liu Bei's thoughts drifted further back, to his own youth.
Chasing dogs. Racing horses. Fine clothes, fine mounts. Back then, that had been his whole world.
Looking back, his only regret was how little time he had spent learning, how rarely he had listened.
"I, Liu Xuande…"
He straightened, stepped forward, and bowed deeply to the gathered ministers.
"I am ashamed to face all of you who still carry the Han in your hearts."
[Lightscreen]
[And yet, even with all that comfort, when Sima Zhao asked Adou the same question a second time, he gave a completely different answer.
He said that the graves of his ancestors lay far away in the west, and that not a single day passed without him thinking of them.
Personally, I believe these two answers reflect exactly how history has judged him: a benevolent ruler, yet one lacking in ability.
The remark, "happy here, no longer thinking of Shu," was simply the honest, unguarded reaction of a man worn down by hardship.
But after Xi Zheng quietly prompted him, his gentle nature prevailed. Out of respect for the minister who had followed him through every danger, he made an effort, however clumsy, to express what he truly felt.
There is no doubt that Adou was the kindest ruler of the Three Kingdoms era, a man unlike any other.
That same easygoing temperament was not so different from Liu Bei's fondness for racing dogs and fine clothes in his youth.
The difference was that Liu Bei had been tempered by the fires of the world. He had witnessed lives treated as lightly as grass, endured the rise and fall of chaos, and only then resolved to end the turmoil and restore the Great Han.
Adou, by contrast, had been sheltered from the moment he could remember. He grew up within the natural defenses of Shu's mountains, while the burdens of war and governance rested on the Prime Minister.
This jade of the Liu family was never given the chance to be tested.
When Liu Bei was struck down by the world again and again, he only grew more resolute, seeking out men of talent and holding fast to the distant dream of reviving the dynasty.
Meanwhile, Liu Shan was raised deep within the quiet palace. The only sky he knew was the square of blue above the courtyard walls, and the only things he played with were the crickets brought to him by servants.
For a descendant of Emperor Zhaolie, the tranquil halls of the inner palace may well have been the place where all true ambition slowly faded away.]