Even two months later, the people of Chang'an still spoke of that victory parade with the kind of wide-eyed excitement usually reserved for miracles.
The Emperor had hosted a banquet for the ages, and for days the entire city seemed caught in a fever dream of celebration. The capture of the Great Qaghan was more than a simple military triumph. It felt like a long-overdue settling of old debts, a cleansing of humiliation, and an expansion of the empire that hinted at the dawn of a golden age.
General Li Jing and General Li Shiji had escorted the captured Illig Qaghan back to the capital with remarkable speed, moving like men eager to rid themselves of a dangerous burden. Yet as the initial excitement faded, more detailed reports from the northeastern campaign began to reach the city.
In the afternoons, Chang'an's tea houses filled with animated debate. Patrons picked apart every detail of the war. They marveled at Li Jing's boldness, leading a small force of cavalry through the night to strike at the heart of the Turkic command. They praised Li Shiji's precision, finishing the remnants of the enemy with the clean efficiency of a seasoned butcher.
Naturally, this led to the "G.O.A.T." debate. Who was the better general?
One side insisted that Li Jing's night attack had been nothing more than a fortunate gamble. The other argued that Li Shiji had faced only a shattered, terrified force, claiming his achievements were built on the ruin Li Jing had already created.
As for the two men at the center of it all, they paid the debate little mind. In truth, both had reason to be satisfied. Li Jing held the prestige of capturing the Qaghan, while Li Shiji had secured tens of thousands of captives along with vast herds of livestock, enough to supply an entire province. There was more than enough glory to share.
However, Li Shiji, known to his close friends as Maogong, was growing restless. After the victory parade, the Emperor had not sent him back to his post in Bingzhou. Instead, he had been asked to remain in Chang'an.
In the high-stakes game of imperial politics, being kept close to the throne after a massive victory could mean one of two things. A promotion. Or a very polite investigation into why exactly you were so well-liked by the troops.
Li Shiji shook his head and forced the dangerous thoughts aside. If he let himself dwell on certain names, certain historical precedents, he might accidentally let something slip over dinner. And if that happened, he would have to pray that Li Shimin was feeling especially merciful that day.
Over the last two months, Li Shiji had tried to read the room, but the Emperor's room was notoriously difficult to read.
Li Shimin had shaken off the victory fever over Illig Qaghan with alarming speed. He had been summoning Li Shiji to the Taiji Hall again and again, not to discuss the war they had just won, but to press him for his thoughts on the Western Regions, the Southern Seas, and the Korean Peninsula.
The Emperor had even made a point of telling him to visit Pei Qing, the Director of the Palace Library.
Li Shiji had been confused at first, but after a single conversation with Pei Qing, he understood. The man was a walking encyclopedia of the northeast. He knew every tribe, every river crossing, every blood feud, and he harbored a strange and specific obsession with a place called the Japan islands. When Li Shiji learned that Pei Qing had been lifted from a minor bureaucratic post to a high-ranking directorship for no other reason than the Emperor's burning curiosity about those islands, the pattern began to emerge.
The boss wants to finish what the Sui Dynasty started, Li Shiji realized. He is looking at Goguryeo.
Today, however, the meeting place had changed. Instead of the formal Taiji Hall, they were gathered in the Ganlu Hall. This was inner circle territory.
As the guards announced him, Li Shiji realized he had badly underestimated the weight of this meeting.
The room was packed with the heavy hitters: Du Ruhui, Fang Xuanling, Zhangsun Wuji, Yuchi Jingde, Li Jing, and even the "professional buzzkill", Wei Zheng. There was also a man he did not recognize, though judging by the brushes and ink set before him, he was an imperial artist.
"Maogong! You are late to the party!" Li Shimin shouted with a grin. He practically bounded over, seized Li Shiji by the shoulder, and steered him into an empty chair.
Li Shiji sat there, slightly stunned, watching the most powerful men in the world bickering like children in a circle.
"They're debating whether I should delay establishing the Martial Temple," Li Shimin said casually.
"The Martial Temple?" Li Shiji asked.
Du Ruhui stepped forward to explain. "The Emperor wants to build a shrine dedicated to the greatest generals in history. Before General Li Jing left for the campaign, the Emperor promised that whoever captured Illig Qaghan would be the first name inscribed within its walls."
Li Shiji's heart skipped a beat. Every soldier dreams of glory, but this was immortality. He didn't need another word of explanation. He practically leaped out of his seat.
"The war has only just ended! I stand with my colleagues! We must delay the construction!" Li Shiji shouted, his voice dripping with theatrical righteousness.
"We should wait until I have personally crushed Goguryeo and dragged their king back to Chang'an in chains. Then we can open the temple!"
Li Shiji's words landed like a slap. Li Jing turned his head slowly and fixed him with a long, patient stare. Enjoy your moment, Maogong. The training ground awaits.
Zhangsun Wuji chimed in from the side. "Your Majesty, do not forget me. I have already called dibs on the India campaign. Write that down."
Even Yuchi Jingde, who usually just sat there radiating menace, pointed at the map. "I recall Li Jing saying that Illig Qaghan was planning to flee to Gaochang. Why wait? Gaochang will fall to us eventually. Why not now?"
"Duke of Wu!" Li Shiji barked at Yuchi Jingde. "Gaochang was planning to shelter the Qaghan. That makes it a mopping-up operation. That is my department!"
The hall dissolved into a shouting match as one man after another scrambled to call dibs on various pieces of the known world. Li Shimin finally waved his arms to bring the chaos to a halt.
"Enough!"
The Ganlu Hall fell silent.
"The Martial Temple is already half-finished," Li Shimin said. "I am not stopping now. However, we have a small problem. Who puts a living man in a temple? That honor is for the dead."
Li Jing's face fell. Was the Emperor backing out? He had not fought a winter campaign through frozen mountain passes just to be handed a polite thank you and shown the door on the whole immortality business.
Li Shimin raised a hand to settle the old general.
"We will do it differently. Outside the temple gates, we will raise a massive Martial Merit Stele of the Great Tang. We will carve the deeds of the Zhenguan generals into the stone while they are still alive to read them."
The room sank into silence as the weight of those words settled over them. Having your name carved into an imperial monument while you were still breathing and could stand there and brag about it? Damn...that was not merely glory. That was the ultimate flex.
Their descendants would not simply hear tales of their greatness. They would see it chiseled into stone by the Emperor's own decree.
Li Jing and Li Shiji exchanged a glance. The rivalry was still there, alive and sharp as ever. But the 'immortality' itch had been well and truly scratched.
Once the debates over dibs and temples had been settled, Li Shiji finally registered the hall's odd arrangement. A massive map covered one wall. A cluster of chairs faced a large and entirely blank section of the opposite wall. Everyone else had fallen quiet, and the Emperor stood beside that empty space with a brush in hand, looking for all the world as though he was about to paint something.
"Maogong," Li Jing whispered, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "A word of warning. When the miracle begins, try not to leap out of your own skin."
Li Shiji scoffed. "What could possibly scare me? A man does not become a general by being jumpy."
He watched with growing curiosity as the Emperor raised his brush. Was he about to perform some calligraphy?
Li Shiji began mentally assembling a list of suitably sophisticated compliments for the Emperor's brushwork.
Then the screen flickered into existence.
Li Shiji nearly flipped backward out of his chair. "Your Majesty! Your brushwork is... it is... SWEET MOTHER OF... Damn,...WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"
The rest of the room exploded with laughter. Li Shiji realized, with a hot rush of embarrassment, that the inner circle had just played him like a drum.
In the Chengdu government office, the atmosphere was considerably more professional.
Kongming and his team were already seated. Wei Yan and Guan Ping had just arrived from Jingzhou with a fresh batch of troops. While Wei Yan had stayed for the debrief, Guan Ping had already been sent on to Hanzhong.
The room held a gathering of the new Shu regime's heaviest names: Liu Bei, Kongming, Pang Tong, Mi Zhu, Zhang Song, Liu Ba, Zhang Fei, and Wei Yan.
Zhang Fei was halfway through a very loud and wildly embellished retelling of the Hanzhong campaign, in which he had apparently punched the city gates open with his bare hands, when the light from the screen cut him off. Wen Mang's voice filled the room, cool and unhurried.
[Lightscreen]
[Hello everyone, your favorite illiterate uploader is back for the weekly update.
Hello everyone, your favorite illiterate uploader is back for the weekly update.
Today we are talking about the Gentry. The Great Clans.
If you look at the early Three Kingdoms period, the most eye-catching names are not the generals or the kings.
They are the clans.
You cannot talk about the coalition against Dong Zhuo without talking about the Yuan brothers from Runan.
The Yuan clan. Four generations of the Three Excellencies. Two warlords from a single house, essentially deciding the fate of the empire between them.
So how did these Great Clans rise? How did they reach their peak, and how were they eventually, and very violently, wiped off the face of the earth?
And more importantly, are the Great Clans the lifeblood of an empire, or are they just very well-dressed parasites?]
[Server Chat Log]
[MidlaneAfk: Holy crap, the UP loader actually posted! Quick, wake up Grandpa, his favorite show is back!
BladeGouger420: If we're talking about the end of the Gentry, the 'Cosmic Grand General' Hou Jing needs a shoutout.
FrozenLute: 'Old nobles' houses are now home to sparrows; the birds fly into the homes of commoners.' The Gentry had their run, but man, they deserved their end.
MadHoundChop: The Gentry didn't just monopolize wealth. They monopolized the cake, the knife used to cut the cake, the plate the cake was served on, and the very definition of what a 'cake' is. Is it any wonder Huang Chao flip the table and burned the whole bakery down?
CrimsonFangZero: The chaos at the end of the Tang was just class warfare reaching a breaking point. Huang Chao, Zhu Wen, Li Zhen... they all shared a burning, primal hatred for the Great Clans. Huang Chao just happened to be the one with the biggest sword. If Zhu Wen had gone first, he would have been even bloodier.
NightPetalSage: The 'Party Strife' of the Tang finally ends; the 'Pure Stream' of the scholars is now just a muddy river of blood. Zhu Wen liked this post.
IronGourd88: Huang Chao was a practical man. He used physics to prove that being 'well-born' didn't make your neck immune to steel.
Zhuge Liang: 'I hold Jingzhou, Yizhou and control Hanzhong, the realm is within reach.
Li Shimin: 'Pfft, check the scoreboard, Marquis. I crushed the Turks and now the foreigners are calling me the Heavenly Khan"]
In Chang'an, Li Shimin's pride at the Heavenly Khan comment lasted for roughly three seconds before the rest of the text slammed into him like a fist.
"The Tang. Party Strife."
What did a Great Clan need to survive? Wealth. Military power. Prestige.
That was why the Li clan had poured such effort into 'fixing' their genealogy, tracing their line all the way back to Li Gao just to prove they were not some pack of upstart soldiers. Li Shimin had spent his youth brimming with pride over his 'Longxi Li' heritage.
But today he was staring at a word that no courtier would ever have dared to write in a formal memorial.
Hatred.
The men who eventually tore the Tang Dynasty apart did not simply want power.
They hated the great clans.
They hated the very idea of the noble-born.
That was why they spoke of "crushing the bones of high officials in the streets of Heaven."
They cast themselves as new rebels like Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, crying out the old challenge: are kings and nobles born to rule?
Yet Chen Sheng and Wu Guang had risen against the so-called Cruel Qin.
If that was so, then what of his own realm?
Would his Great Tang, this empire he had built with his own hands, one day be named a Cruel Tang?
Wei Zheng said nothing. He stood fixed before the screen, eyes wide, taking in the judgment the future had passed upon men of his kind.
"It is only the beginning of the account, My Lord," Zhangsun Wuji said quietly. "There is no need to take it to heart just yet. Perhaps what follows will show us a way to avoid such an end."
Li Shimin gave no reply.
His thoughts had already turned inward.
'If the rot of the great clans could only be cut away by a man like Huang Chao, then what path remained to him?'
[Lightscreen]
[The history of the aristocracy before the Han was relatively simple, thanks to the First Emperor.
Qin Shi Huang spent six generations of accumulated fury to wipe out the Six States one by one. The old nobles of those states were not simply defeated. They were ground into the dust.
They lost everything.
But the Qin Dynasty was a 'blink-and-you-miss-it' empire.
It died with the second emperor.
It did not last long enough for a new system of nobility to take root. Besides, the First Emperor was a control freak. He did not delegate power. He hoarded it.
So when Liu Bang finally unified the realm, the aristocratic class of the early Han was essentially a blank slate. It was a vibrant 'startup energy' where everyone was a first-generation success story.
The Records of the Grand Historian make this very clear. In the fifth year of Gaozu's reign, after the realm was settled, Liu Bang scrapped the rigid Qin legal code and told Shusun Tong to come up with a new set of rituals, something simple.
Why simple? Because when Liu Bang sat down to drink with his founding heroes, the scene was an absolute disaster.
You had men getting drunk and screaming that Liu Bang would be nothing without them.
You had generals throwing punches over who had killed more men.
You had men who mistook a palace pillar for an enemy and started hacking at it with their swords.
Liu Bang watched this and his head hurt. The 'Simple Rituals' were not about being elegant. They were about making his generals act like human beings for once.
These men, the founding heroes of the Han, did not start out as Four Generations and Three Excellencies. They were not the polished snobs of the later dynasties.
Xiao He was a low-level clerk.
Cao Shen was a jailer.
Fan Kuai, the man who saved Liu Bang's life at the Hongmen Banquet, was a butcher who sold dog meat.
Guan Ying, the legendary general, was a cloth merchant.
The' startup team' of the Han had one enormous advantage. There were plenty of empty seats at the top. If you had talent and were willing to bleed, the 'Han Dream Team' was wide open.
And it was during this period that the first evolution of the Great Clans began to take shape.
The Local Strongmen. The Haoqiang.]