[Lightscreen]
[By the end of the Sui dynasty, the Southern Route connecting Shanshan, Jingjue, and Yutian had been completely abandoned.
As for why it was abandoned, Master Xuanzang actually documented the terrifying reason in his travel logs on his way back to the Tang.
He wrote that the city of Niya had been entirely swallowed alive by the desert sands. The surviving locals were barely clinging to life around a tiny, shrinking oasis lake barely three miles wide.
The road itself was completely impassable.
This dead city of Niya was actually the capital of the ancient Jingjue Kingdom from the third century. Their entire civilization collapsed simply because the land underwent severe desertification and the green oases vanished.
With the Southern Route permanently closed by Mother Nature, merchants and armies could only travel via the Middle and Northern routes. However, these two remaining paths were squeezed incredibly close together. To make matters worse, the kingdom of Yiwu on the Northern Route had already voluntarily surrendered to the Great Tang back in the fourth year of Zhenguan.
This specific geographical bottleneck turned the Kingdom of Gaochang into the absolute choke point of the entire Silk Road.
They held the keys to the West, but instead of playing it smart and submitting to the Tang, the King of Gaochang decided to bare his fangs and openly antagonize Li Shimin.
Honestly, when you provoke an emperor famous for holding epic grudges, you really cannot blame Li Shimin for coming to knock down your door.
The military campaign to flatten Gaochang was pushed through almost entirely by Li Shimin's sheer, stubborn willpower.
In December of the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, the Emperor ordered the elite Tang heavy cavalry to march on Gaochang.
Every single high-ranking minister and royal advisor violently objected.
They flooded the court, crying out: "Your Majesty, it is too far! The logistics will bankrupt us! Even if we conquer it, it is impossible to defend! Please reconsider!"
The historical record notes his response with three chilling words: "The Emperor refused."
By August of the fourteenth year of Zhenguan, Gaochang was completely wiped off the map.
With the enemy destroyed, the court erupted into chaos once again regarding what to do with the newly conquered territory. The advisors were completely divided.
Wei Zheng strongly opposed keeping the land, he argued that the chief villain was already dead, so they should just install a puppet ruler and leave.
Maintaining a permanent garrison would be a massive financial black hole. He even grimly predicted that if they left troops in that harsh desert environment, seventy to eighty percent of the soldiers would die from the brutal climate.
Chu Suiliang also objected, he claimed that garrisoning troops would exhaust the commoners and drain the treasury. He suggested crowning a new King of Gaochang and simply taking his son as a hostage.
Once again, the historical record notes: "The Emperor refused."
This specific debate over Gaochang marks one of the incredibly rare moments in history where the legendary, genius cabinet of the Zhenguan era collectively dropped the ball.
They all completely missed the bigger picture,
Why? Because right at this exact moment, the Tibetan Empire was experiencing a massive surge in national power.
If Li Shimin had not stubbornly ignored his entire cabinet and forcefully seized Gaochang when he did, the rising Tibetan Empire would have eventually swallowed that choke point. If that happened, the Great Tang's window of opportunity to expand into the Western Regions would have been slammed shut permanently.
To force their way into the West later, the Tang would have had to pay a price tens or even hundreds of times bloodier than the Gaochang campaign.
But because Li Shimin secured Gaochang as a forward operating base, the rest of the dominoes fell perfectly.
In the eighteenth year of Zhenguan, they established the Yanqi Protectorate.
In the twenty-second year, they crushed Kucha and established the Four Garrisons of Anxi. By the fourth year of Emperor Gaozong's Xianqing era, they completely eradicated the Western Turks.
This entire string of flawless military conquests flowed naturally from that one stubborn decision.
Years later, the minister Cen Wenben even wrote a highly flattering memorial to the Emperor. He basically said: "The pacification of Gaochang relied entirely on two people. Your Majesty's supreme, divine foresight, and General Hou Junji's tactical brilliance. As for the rest of us in the court? We were completely useless and only got in the way!"
And Wei Zheng's prediction about seventy percent of the garrison dying? It never happened.
In the sixteenth year of Zhenguan, Guo Xiaoke traveled to the region to serve as the local governor, he wrote in his official report that when he passed through the old capital of Gaochang, the Tang garrison troops were entirely healthy, completely supplied, and in remarkably high spirits.]
Inside the Ganlu Hall, Du Ruhui did not even need to turn his head.
He could practically feel the smug, radiant aura of absolute vindication pouring off the Dragon Throne behind him.
His instincts were flawless. Before he could even brace himself, the Emperor's voice echoed through the hall.
"Xuancheng," Li Shimin began. His tone was incredibly gentle and polite, but the overwhelming, obnoxious joy vibrating in his voice was impossible for anyone in the room to miss. "Tell me, do you currently believe this Kingdom of Gaochang should be destroyed?"
Wei Zheng remained perfectly stiff, his expression a mask of pure stoicism. He neither cowered nor backed down.
"I believe, Your Majesty," Wei Zheng replied smoothly, "that since we have already received confirmed intelligence that the King of Gaochang is personally arriving in the capital next year to pay tribute, discussing the annihilation of his kingdom at this precise moment is highly inappropriate."
Li Shimin clicked his tongue, playfully thwarted by his favorite critic, but the massive grin never left his face.
Making a brilliant decision was satisfying. But having a brilliant decision that everyone originally hated be overwhelmingly validated by historians a thousand years later? That feeling hit differently.
It was the kind of euphoria that made a ruler wake up at three in the morning, stare at the ceiling, and think: "Damn, Future generations are going to quote me so hard."
Off to the side, General Hou Junji was grinning so hard his face looked like it might split in half.
The glory of personally exterminating an entire hostile nation was the ultimate dream for any military commander. Knowing that the divine screen had just guaranteed him this legendary achievement had his blood boiling with excitement.
In fact, Hou Junji was so pumped up that a highly treasonous thought popped into his head.
Should I secretly sabotage the King of Gaochang's peace talks next year? If Li Shimin actually used his political charisma to charm the Gaochang King into total submission, there would be no war. And if there was no war, where was Hou Junji supposed to get his country-destroying achievement?
He quickly shoved the dangerous thought deep down into the darkest corner of his mind.
Li Jing, the legendary God of War who had personally captured the Khan of the Eastern Turks, remained perfectly composed. He was much more interested in analyzing the geopolitical data on the screen.
Li Shiji, however, was feeling incredibly jealous. He stepped forward, eager for his own piece of the glory.
"Your Majesty," Li Shiji prompted. "What about this Tubo... the Tibetan Empire?"
Li Shimin's smile instantly vanished, replaced by the cold, calculating gaze of a predator. "That situation requires long-term, highly detailed planning."
The Tang intelligence network had already gathered disturbing reports about the Tibetan plateau. Traveling merchants spoke of a terrifying invisible miasma that haunted the high mountains. Men would suffer agonizing headaches, gasp for air as if drowning on dry land, completely lose their strength, and succumb to bizarre fatigue.
Li Shimin knew from the future knowledge that this was called altitude sickness. However, he had absolutely no idea if the sugar water remedy mentioned in passing by the narrator would actually be enough to keep an entire army functional up there.
But make no mistake. As soon as the Tang army found a reliable countermeasure, Li Shimin fully intended to hit the Tibetans with everything he had. The future humiliation of losing the Hexi Corridor to them was a burning insult etched into his soul, and he refused to let his incompetent descendants bear that shame alone.
Suddenly, Du Ruhui stepped forward, his brow furrowed in intense concentration. He completely shattered the Emperor's military fantasies.
"Your Majesty," Du Ruhui said, his voice tight with urgency. "There is a massive flaw in the historical record."
Everyone turned to stare at the Minister of State. Du Ruhui pointed a trembling finger at the transcript of the previous broadcast regarding Master Xuanzang.
"The Light screen explicitly stated that a massive famine occurred in the third year of Zhenguan," Du Ruhui explained rapidly. "It said the government issued an emergency decree allowing citizens to flee the empire for survival, and that is how Master Xuanzang managed to slip out of the capital."
Du Ruhui looked up, meeting the Emperor's eyes. "While it is true that Xuzhou suffered a drought and locust plague this past June... our war against the Eastern Turks concluded months ahead of schedule. The massive national resources saved from ending the war early completely prevented any widespread famine. We never issued any emergency decree to abandon the borders."
Li Shimin let out a sharp gasp. Realization slammed into him like a physical blow.
The timeline had fractured. The butterfly effect had struck.
Because Li Shimin had altered history by winning the Turkic war so efficiently, the desperate conditions that forced Xuanzang to leave the country legally never occurred.
That meant the legendary monk was most likely still sitting in a temple somewhere in the Central Plains or the South. He had never left for the Western Regions.
Panic rippled through the Ganlu Hall. How were they supposed to trigger the greatest theological upgrade in their civilization's history if the main character was stuck at home?
Meanwhile, inside the Chengdu government office, the officials of Shu Han were utterly paralyzed by the sheer, terrifying speed of the Tang military machine.
"They destroyed an entire kingdom in just over eight months?" Liu Bei muttered, his eyes wide with a mixture of awe and deep, crushing inadequacy. "This Great Tang truly possesses the terrifying, overwhelming aura of the ancient Strong Han."
Liu Bei thought back to his own miserable campaigns.
The disastrous Battle of Yiling had dragged on for nearly eight agonizing months before he lost his entire army and everything he had built.
Even his victories in Hanzhong and Yizhou had taken years of brutal, grinding warfare. Hanzhong was a pyrrhic victory that left his lands exhausted, and taking Yizhou had cost him the life of his brilliant strategist, Pang Tong.
Compared to Li Shimin casually wiping a kingdom off the map in a single campaign season, Liu Bei felt like a child playing with toy soldiers. Damn. How did he do that?
Zhang Fei leaned in and whispered to Kongming. "Let us just pray this Tang Emperor does not go completely insane in his old age like Emperor Wu of Han did. That kind of military power in the hands of a madman would be a nightmare."
[Lightscreen]
[The idea of traveling all the way to the Western Regions to retrieve holy scriptures was not just some random whim that Master Xuanzang came up with one morning. The path had actually been carved out centuries earlier by another legend.
In the year 399 AD. Just for context, this single calendar year simultaneously contained: the third year of the Longan era of the Eastern Jin, the first year of the Changle era of the Later Yan, the sixth year of the Huangchu era of the Later Qin, the twelfth year of the Taichu era of the Western Qin, the second year of the Tianxing era of the Northern Wei, the fourth year of the Longfei era of the Later Liang, the third year of the Taichu era of the Southern Liang, and the third year of the Shenxi era of the Northern Liang.]
"Wait, what?" Zhang Fei's jaw literally dropped. He held up his hands, aggressively trying to count on his thick fingers. "Are you telling me all of those were happening in the exact same year?"
Zhang Fei looked around the room, absolutely baffled. "Eight different kingdoms existing at the exact same time? How is that even physically possible? How did the world get this messed up?"
Even the usually composed Kongming looked visibly stressed. He rubbed his face, letting out a long, exhausted sigh. "No wonder the future generations practically grind their teeth to dust whenever the Sima clan is mentioned. They truly broke the world."
[Lightscreen]
[In this incredibly chaotic year, the great Buddhist master Faxian departed from Chang'an. He traveled through the Western Regions all the way to India, exploring over thirty distinct nations. He collected a massive trove of original Sanskrit texts and spent fourteen grueling years completing his journey before finally returning home.
Because the world was basically one giant, endless warzone at the time, Faxian had to travel incredibly carefully. When he passed through Dunhuang, the local governor provided him with massive logistical support. That governor's name was Li Hao. Ironically, this is the exact same Li Hao that Li Shimin would later forcefully claim as his ancient ancestor to boost his royal pedigree. History has a funny way of connecting things.
Faxian eventually compiled his fourteen years of travel into the legendary text A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms. He passed away five years after returning and is revered as a revolutionary pioneer of Chinese Buddhism.
To honor this incredible monk, a specific reef island in our modern South China Sea is officially named Faxian Reef.]
"The sea meets the sky in a boundless display of absolute elegance," Kongming whispered, deeply moved.
It was not just Kongming. Every single man in the hall was staring at the screen without blinking. None of them, trapped in the inland mountains of Shu, had ever seen the true, open ocean.
The screen displayed a cinematic drone shot of an impossible, crystal-clear expanse of vivid blue water. A pristine coral reef, mostly submerged but glowing with vibrant colors, sat peacefully in the center. Cruising slowly around the perimeter of Faxian Reef were two massive, heavily armed, blindingly white modern warships.
Below the breathtaking footage, a bold caption appeared. Pang Tong read it aloud, his voice steady.
"Faxian Reef is the inherent, sacred territory of our nation, over which we possess indisputable sovereignty."
Pang Tong's face softened, his eyes shining with profound respect. "This monk traveled to foreign lands to seek the truth in life. In death, his very name eternally guards the borders of his civilization. Thousands of years later, his descendants still honor his achievements by parking warships over his memorial. That is the ultimate, perfect ending for a hero."
The drone footage slowly zoomed out, transitioning into a massive, modern geopolitical map. The tiny reef faded into a sweeping view of the entire coastline.
Kongming leaned close to the screen, studying the bold lines etched into the ocean. "Do these lines imply that everything within this massive maritime boundary belongs to the future China?"
Liu Ba, the ruthless economic pragmatist, stroked his chin and looked genuinely annoyed. "They drew the border right next to that massive, beautiful island to the east. Why did they not just conquer the big island? Surely that is vastly more profitable than claiming a few rocks underwater?"
Kongming sighed, his mind heavy with the brutal cycles of history. "A thousand years of history is a long time, my friend. Slaves rebel against their masters. Barbarian vassals rise up to insult the Central Plains. Empires rise and shatter like glass. The seas change into mulberry fields and back again. The world is rarely as simple as taking what you want."
[Lightscreen]
[Master Xuanzang's absolute, unshakeable obsession with reaching India was heavily inspired by Faxian's legendary precedent.
However, while Faxian kept a very low profile and sneaked around the warzones, Xuanzang's journey was basically a high-octane, overpowered protagonist speedrun.
When Xuanzang arrived in India, he did not settle for second best.
He marched straight into Nalanda, the greatest university in the world at that time, and studied directly under the legendary master Silabhadra.
After grinding his theology stats in secret for five years, Xuanzang hit the road again.
He traveled solo across dozens of ancient Indian states. And everywhere he went, he started theological brawls. In the arena of Buddhist debate, literally no one in the entire subcontinent could beat him.
He authored the Treatise on the Harmony of Principles, a three-thousand-verse masterpiece that utterly annihilated the philosophical theories of the famous Indian master Simharasmi. Simharasmi was so humiliated that he called in another heavyweight, Prajñāgupta, hoping to regain his honor. But Prajñāgupta was so terrified of Xuanzang's overwhelming debate aura that he refused to even speak. Xuanzang's reputation exploded.
Later, Xuanzang represented Nalanda University in a massive debate against the followers of the Charvaka philosophy. He crushed them until they were completely speechless. He debated the greatest masters of the Hinayana school and swept the floor with them.
Finally, King Harsha himself hosted the ultimate theological tournament in the city of Kanyakubja exclusively for Xuanzang. Eighteen ruling kings of India attended. Three thousand elite Buddhist scholars were present. Two thousand scholars from other rival religions showed up. Out of all those thousands of geniuses, not a single person dared to step up and challenge Master Xuanzang. His supreme name echoed across the entire length of the Ganges River.
Xuanzang perfectly embodied the concept of an academic god. He single-handedly suppressed the entire theological landscape of India.
Oh, and in his spare time between utterly destroying people in debates, Xuanzang translated the classic Daoist text Daodejing into Sanskrit, just casually executing a massive cultural export on the side.
His entire incredible journey was meticulously documented in his twelve-volume Great Tang Records on the Western Regions. Hundreds of years later, this book provided the core source material for the legendary fantasy novel Journey to the West.
But the ultimate irony? Today, Xuanzang's travel log is literally the single most important historical document used by modern India to study their own ancient history.
A thousand years later, India actually has to go to China to retrieve their own history. Who could have ever predicted that?]
The light screen faded from the ancient map and transitioned to a stunning night shot of a modern city.
The camera panned up, revealing a towering, majestic figure of the monk holding his staff. He was staring out over a sprawling, glowing metropolis bathed in a sea of neon lights and bustling crowds.
[Lightscreen]
[And today, standing proudly right next to the Great Ci'en Temple in modern Xi'an, is a massive bronze statue of Master Xuanzang.
The great master stares deeply toward the neon brilliance of the 'Grand Tang Everbright' City district. It is as if he is peering straight through the fabric of time, witnessing the eternal, unbreakable prosperity of the 'Great Tang' he loved so much.]