The Ganlu Hall lay in complete silence. The highest officials of the Great Tang stood with their hands tucked neatly into their sleeves, not daring to shift. The only sound that lingered beneath the light screen was the fading echo of Li Shimin's dry laughter.
When a man spends his days cutting a path across the world with a blade, he rarely pays attention to those watching from the sidelines. Warlords and rival kings are obvious enemies, easy to name and strike down. But once the armor is set aside and the real work of ruling begins, another force reveals itself, one far less visible, yet far more entrenched. The power of the great local clans slammed into him like a brick wall.
Li Shimin understood this better than most. He himself had come from the powerful Longyou aristocratic circle. He knew exactly how such clans regarded the imperial throne.
"Imperial power against local power." His voice dropped as the last trace of amusement left his face. "That screen did not miss the mark."
Every decree issued by the court had to pass through local hands before it could take effect. That was where the trouble began.
These regional powers held the common people in their grasp. In regions close to Chang'an, they bowed obediently, wary of the Emperor's authority and the armies that stood behind him.
Further out, they would greet imperial envoys with polite smiles while quietly undermining every order, treating the law as something to be bargained over. And on the distant edges of the empire, some simply ignored the throne altogether.
Take the Boling Cui clan, for example. Even Li Shimin himself could not deny that he had long respected their name.
The ministers remained silent, allowing the Emperor time to think. His gaze had sharpened, calculation flickering behind his eyes.
"This Cui family rose to power alongside Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han," Li Shimin muttered, his eyes narrowing.
"When the emperors died, they survived. When the Han Dynasty collapsed, they survived. I am sitting here working myself to the death for the empire, and for what?
Am I just acting as a glorified head farmhand for the Boling Cui estate?"
It was a dangerously sharp comment. Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui exchanged a quick, nervous glance. Fang Xuanling hailed from the Qinghe Fang clan, and Du Ruhui from the Jingzhao Du clan. They both felt a slight sting of collective guilt, but this was absolutely not the moment to speak up in defense of aristocratic privilege.
Seeing the subtle panic in his colleagues' eyes, Zhangsun Wuji stepped forward with a flawless, practiced smile.
"Your Majesty is the Son of Heaven," Wuji said smoothly. "You possess the wealth of the four seas. Why belittle yourself so harshly? Look at the screen. A thousand years later, the future still adores and respects Your Majesty. Meanwhile, the Boling Cui clan has been completely erased by the tides of history. Even if they are remembered a millennium later, it is only to be spat upon."
Li Shimin's complexion improved slightly at the flattery. But a dark thought lingered in his mind, one he chose not to voice.
The screen had mentioned that the Boling Cui reached their absolute peak during the Late Tang, producing over a dozen Chancellors. He remembered the earlier spoilers about the An Lushan Rebellion, the idea of the Tang declining while the aristocrats feasted killed any remaining desire to joke.
He abruptly changed the subject, focusing on a different clan.
"This Hongnong Yang family. Are they truly extinct?"
It was a fair question. After all, Yang Jian, the founding Emperor of the Sui dynasty, had loudly and proudly declared that his thirteenth-generation ancestor was none other than Yang Zhen, the famous Grand Commandant of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
The ministers exchanged awkward glances. Finally, Fang Xuanling stepped forward, choosing his words with surgical precision. "Perhaps the future generations have simply researched the historical records far more thoroughly than we have.
It is true that from the end of the Han to the rise of the Sui, the Hongnong Yang clan experienced massive, violent upheavals, during the Northern Dynasties, several different Yang branches all magically claimed to be the authentic Hongnong Yang clan, there was likely a great deal of... creative fabrication involved."
Li Shimin shook his head in disgust. He did not believe a word of those ancient genealogies anymore. 'The screen already exposed our fake Li Gao ancestry to the whole world. And now it turns out the Sui pulled the exact same scam first? Wonderful.
In the current era, powerful great clans considered it a badge of honor to chain their names to the remnants of ancient, legendary bloodlines.
But to the future? Those people who could read the entire sweep of history and watch a literal beggar named Zhu Chongba conquer the world? They probably looked at these fake aristocratic pedigrees and laughed until they cried.
They did not see nobility. They saw a pathetic joke.
Did Li Shimin actually need the stolen glory of Li Gao to validate his reign? Absolutely not.
If anything, Li Gao's name only mattered to history because Li Shimin became an Emperor of the Ages.
Li Shimin waved his hand dismissively. "When the time comes to compile the Book of Jin, make sure every lineage is rigorously verified. Do not let this dynasty become a laughingstock for the future."
Fang Xuanling understood immediately and bowed deeply to accept the decree.
The other ministers lowered their heads, their minds already spinning with their own private calculations.
[Lightscreen]
[So if we look back, the 'Aristocratic Playbook' was already fully optimized by the strongmen of the Han.
It was the perfect meta strategy."
Step one: use immense wealth to build connections with famous scholars.
Step two: have those scholars bestow flawless, glowing reputations on the young men of your family.
Step three: use that reputation to enter the bureaucracy quickly and legally.
Step four: use official power to seize even more land and wealth.
With greater wealth, you win over even more prestigious scholars. They elevate your reputation further, pushing your sons into higher offices. Then you repeat the cycle. Over and over again. A perfect, self-sustaining machine of corruption.
Wealth, scholarly prestige, and political office. These three formed a 'closed loop'. Possess any one of them, and you could buy your way into the cycle. From there, the families kept growing, expanding without limit until the end of the Han, when they became so powerful that they stepped onto the stage as active players in the game of conquering the world.
It is crucial to understand how this evolved, the great clans of the Qin Dynasty were bound strictly by blood. By the Han Dynasty, those same forces had transformed into regional mafias.They did not just control their relatives. They controlled entire local populations, forming near-total monopolies over the lives, politics, and economies of their home regions."
"The strongmen of the Eastern Han were terrifying because they had become localized, untouchable interest groups. By the end of the era, being a local power was essentially the entry ticket to the Three Kingdoms."
"The Yuan clan and the Cao clan are the most obvious examples. Everyone knows them.
But look closer. The Xiahou clan, who followed Cao Cao, were the apex predators of Qiao County.
And Xu Chu, whom people like to picture as a simple, loyal brute, was in fact a major warlord in that same place. The Records of the Three Kingdoms clearly state that he gathered thousands of households under his command and built fortified strongholds. A random village hero does not accomplish that. A common brawler does not command thousands. That requires money, influence, and deep-rooted connections. He was a local strongman through and through."
"Then there were the great clans of Yingchuan: the Chen, the Xun, and the Zhong. The Chen produced Chen Qun, who created the Nine-Rank System and essentially wrote the rulebook for aristocratic dominance. The Xun gave us Xun Yu and Xun You, two of Cao Cao's sharpest strategists. The Zhong produced Zhong Yao, a renowned calligrapher and minister, and his son Zhong Hui, the general who conquered Shu Han. Three families, one commandery. An iron triangle of intellect, land, and influence."
"In Yanzhou, you had Cheng Yu and Li Dian. Cheng Yu was a ruthless pragmatist who commanded his own forces before ever joining Cao Cao. Li Dian's family contributed thousands of followers. Neither of them was a wandering talent in search of a lord. They were local powers with land to defend and people to command."
"And in Hebei, there was Cui Yan of the Qinghe Cui, a different branch from the Boling line. Cui Yan was a Confucian moralist with a reputation so spotless it practically shone. He first advised Yuan Shao, then Cao Cao. In the end, Cao Cao had him executed over a misunderstanding, which tells you just how fragile even the position of a great power could be."
"Cao Cao himself can be seen as the ultimate try-hard, a man who grinded his way to the top of the northern strongman server."
"The Sun clan of Jiangdong is a special case. You could say they were among the first to benefit when chaos effectively wiped the entire server.
"Before the Yellow Turban Rebellion, Sun Jian was just a minor local official. His reputation came from being an absolute madman in battle, the kind of man who hunted bandits without caring whether he lived or died.
When the rebellion broke out, Sun Jian perfectly timed his entry. He grabbed the very last available VIP ticket to the strongman club.
He recruited merchants, refugees, and local fighters from the Huai and Si river regions, building an army of a thousand men. In every single battle, he charged first. He gambled his life for a reputation."
"That is why he fought like a rabid dog during the coalition against Dong Zhuo. By being the first to smash his way into the ruins of Luoyang, he successfully cashed in on that reputation. He upgraded himself from a 'random rebel hero' to a 'legitimate local strongman'."
"The problem was that Sun Jian and his son, Sun Ce, built their power on raw military violence instead kissing up to famous scholars.. Their playstyle clashed completely with the late Han meta, and the records make that very clear."
"Sun Jian sought a marriage alliance with the prestigious Wu clan. They rejected him. His response was to threaten them with destruction, terrifying the family into agreeing. That girl, Lady Wu, later became the mother of Sun Ce, Sun Quan, and the rest of the Sun brothers. In a very real sense, the foundation of Eastern Wu was built on a death threat."
"He also had personal conflicts with Wang Rui, the Inspector of Jingzhou, and Zhang Zi, the Administrator of Nanyang. His solution was simple. He forced Wang Rui to drink poison and personally cut down Zhang Zi to the death.
"Sun Ce behaved in exactly the same way. When a scholar named Gao Dai offended him, Sun Ce decided to execute him. The local gentry pleaded for mercy, but that only made him feel more insulted. So he killed the man anyway."
The people they killed were deeply embedded within the aristocratic network, so it is no surprise that both Sun Jian and Sun Ce met sudden, violent ends. They played against the server rules, and the server fought back.
It was only when Sun Quan took control and abandoned this approach that the Sun clan completed its final transformation. They put down the bloody swords, started playing the political game, and finally secured a seat at the table.
As a side note, two other figures who shared the Sun family's violently flawed playstyle were Lu Bu and Ma Chao. They were heavily armed warlords born into the wrong era. Had they lived during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, they might have become legends.
Because they played against the meta, Lu Bu and Ma Chao share the same ruined reputations and tragic endings as Sun Jian. The difference is that Sun Quan later repaired the family's standing, preserving Sun Jian's image in history.
And then there is Liu Bei. You do not even need to analyze his faction in detail. Just look at the roster. They were all players who had been rejected by the current patch.
Mi Zhu had immense wealth but no political influence. He failed to upgrade from rich merchant to aristocrat. Liu Ba actively tried to join Cao Cao's elite guild, but the Boss literally threw him out the front door.
We all know the Second and Third Brothers. Guan Yu was a wanted fugitive. Zhang Fei made his living slaughtering pigs.
Zhao Yun? A lone warrior from Changshan. No powerful clan. No scholarly backing. The aristocratic system had no place for someone like him.
Wei Yan? A rough man from Yiyang with a sharp temper and no restraint. The kind of person elite clans would never admit through the front gate. He forced his way in through the back.
Huang Zhong? An aging veteran stuck in a dead-end post in Changsha. Too old to be valued, too proud to step aside. The system had already discarded him.
As for Zhuge Liang? He saw how toxic the aristocratic gameplay was and actively deleted his account to go farm in Longzhong.
This was Liu Bei's faction. A wealthy merchant without status. A fugitive. A butcher. A clanless warrior. A loud outsider. An old man the world had forgotten. And a genius who had opted out of the game.
This is exactly why the entire Shu Han faction felt so completely out of place in the Late Han era. They were rebels driving the wrong way down a one-way street in a world gone mad.
And when Shu Han finally fell, the aristocratic clans faced no more resistance.
They advanced to the peak, completing their transformation into untouchable Noble Houses.
And on their way up, they kicked away the common people who had once served as their stepping stones, sending them tumbling into the abyss below.]
Inside the Chengdu government office, the atmosphere was tense.
Liu Ba was the first to crack. His face flushed a violent shade of purple as he pointed a shaking finger at the sky.
"What does it mean, thrown out the front door? I was... I simply..."
His voice caught in his throat. He literally could not find the words to spin it.
"Kicked out?" Zhang Fei offered helpfully, his booming voice carrying not a trace of malice.
Liu Ba's face went from purple to a dangerous shade of crimson. Beside him, Mi Zhu offered a gentle, consoling pat on the shoulder.
"Why let it bother you, Zichu?" Mi Zhu said with a warm smile.
"Looking back, it was hardly a bad thing. If you had gone to Xuchang, would you be sitting here watching this screen?
Would Cao Cao have given you the freedom to rewrite the tax codes the way our lord does?"
Liu Ba had to admit the man had a point. The working conditions here were, objectively, the best he had ever had. The lord actually listened. The pay was good. The screen was magical.
Still.
Thrown out the front door. That phrasing was going to haunt him for years.
"I merely recognized that the traitor Cao lacked the vision to judge true talent! So I chose to wander the mountains and rivers instead!"
"Absolutely. Very true. Totally makes sense."
Pang Tong ignored the banter entirely. His face twisted into a grimace as he stared at the screen, running the numbers in his head.
"Wait. If Cao Cao is the ultimate winner of that northern game, does that not mean he has successfully united the combined power of every aristocratic clans above the river?"
Zhang Fei slapped the table, his eyes lighting up with genuine joy.
"That is fantastic news! All the targets in one place! We can wipe out the whole rotten lot of them in one big pot!"
Pang Tong stared at the giant warrior. Completely speechless.Yide, he thought, please. Use your brain. Just once. I am begging you.
"The future generations have an incredibly high vantage point," Pang Tong said. "This summary of the Aristocrat Closed Loop is brilliant. It sounds simple, but it is a terrifyingly accurate description of how the world actually works."
Kongming sat quietly, his fingers lightly tracing the edge of a crisp, freshly made sheet of paper resting on his desk. His eyes burned with a cold, intellectual fire.
"If this closed loop is the source of their power,"
He murmured, his voice soft but carrying across the quiet room, "then cheap paper will be the death sentence of the famous scholars."
Pang Tong's eyes widened as he followed the logic. He slapped his thigh in sudden realization.
"Yes! Exactly! The cheaper paper gets, the further the classics can spread. At this rate, even a farmer with a few spare coins could buy a copy of the sacred texts!"
Pang Tong grinned, teeth flashing.
"Once the monopoly on knowledge breaks, that ridiculous spectacle is finished. No more Great Masters like Zhang Xing, Mou Chang, or Cai Xuan hoarding the classics like a dragon guarding gold. No more scholars running around with ten thousand disciples trailing behind them. That era is officially dead."
Zhang Fei leaned his massive head forward, brow furrowed in confusion.
"Who are these Zhang and whatever guys?"
Pang Tong's eye twitched. He looked very much like a man who was about to flip the entire table.
Zhang Song quickly stepped in. " Yide, Military Shiyuan is referring to Zhang Xing, Mou Chang, and Cai Xuan, they are legendary masters of the classics. Even here in Shu, their names are spoken with reverence. Take Cai Xuan, for example. The world praises him for mastering all Five Classics. He has over a thousand servants in his household and a roster of sixteen thousand registered disciples."
Zhang Fei let out a loud, astonished gasp.
"Sixteen thousand?! That is not a school! That is a private army! They are just strongmen who use books instead of swords!"
Kongming tapped the sheet of paper on his desk, a satisfied smile playing on his lips.
"Precisely. That is why I say this simple invention will destroy them."
His gaze drifted toward the window, looking out over the busy Chengdu streets.
"If we can awaken the minds of the common people," Kongming continued, his vision expanding into the future, "if we can build a world where a single measure of grain buys a copy of the classics... then these so-called scholarly lineages will simply evaporate."
Kongming closed his eyes, imagining the monumental shift in society. It was a beautiful, chaotic thought.
"If we can mass-produce books the way the future does, and pair them with a proper examination system... we do not need to turn peasants into genius overnight. If we can simply educate them enough to serve as county clerks, the stranglehold of the local strongmen will break. Forever."
Pang Tong stroked his short beard, looking at Kongming with a mixture of awe and genuine concern.
"Kongming, if you pull this off, you will make yourself the mortal enemy of every aristocratic clans under heaven. And our lord will be standing right in the crosshairs beside you."
Kongming opened his eyes and laughed, a bright, clear sound that filled the room.
"When we were in Jing Province, I once had a long conversation with the divine physician Zhang Zhongjing," Kongming said, his eyes twinkling. "He taught me a very important medical principle. A starving, exhausted patient cannot survive a massive dose of strong medicine. The disease of the aristocratic clans has seeped deep into the very marrow of the Han. We must cure it slowly. Step by step."
He picked up his feather fan, waving it with quiet confidence.
"And besides, when the time comes to administer the bitter medicine... Cao Mengde will help us. Whether he wants to or not."