Kongming was absolutely fascinated by this historical evolution of the aristocratic clans. He immediately picked up his brush, dipped it into fresh ink, and meticulously recorded the concepts of Centralization, Urbanization, and Demilitarization into his personal notebook.
He stared at his own writing, pondered the brutal mechanics of human greed for a moment, and then added a final, cynical footnote at the bottom of the page.
Lure them with profit, based on their natural momentum.
Pang Tong leaned his head over to spy on Zhuge Liang's notes, he read the footnote, scratched his chin, and shook his head in disagreement.
He tapped a finger against the paper.
"That is a secondary step," he said, tapping a finger against the paper. "Before you offer them a single copper coin of profit, you must first terrify them with the cold steel of our lord's blade. Only when they are sufficiently traumatized will they be willing to negotiate."
Kongming smiled and nodded in complete agreement.
"Looking at the grand timeline of this curse," he analyzed, his mind piecing together the invisible historical threads, "the absolute peak of aristocratic power occurred during the Wei and Jin dynasties. Therefore, the subsequent Sui and Tang dynasties must have actively launched aggressive policies to suppress the private, local mercenary armies. That is the only logical way they could have shattered the foundation of the elite clans."
Kongming had hit the nail perfectly on the head. He understood that these massive clans, who survived from the reign of Emperor Wu of Han through centuries of brutal warfare, drew their terrifying resilience from two things. They hoarded rural land, and they recruited massive private armies of desperate peasants.
The moment these elites transitioned from having two strongholds to exclusively living in the capital city, their ultimate doom was mathematically sealed.
Pang Tong voiced his own educated guess. "The Tang dynasty might not have possessed the foresight to study our specific Han dynasty struggles. However, they were literally separated from the chaotic Wei and Jin period by a few mere decades. The horror stories had to be fresh in their minds. The founder of the Sui dynasty must have enacted brutal, sweeping measures to crush the elite monopolies."
The light screen had been slightly vague on the exact transition, leaving the Shu Han strategists to fill in the blanks.
But to Pang Tong, the fact that Emperor Yang Jian of Sui was historically labeled an "weirdo" spoke volumes.
Yang Jian was clearly a magnificent, ruthless visionary, it was a massive tragedy that his two idiot sons inherited the throne. Otherwise, the Sui dynasty would have lasted far longer than two miserable generations.
Kongming agreed completely.
His sharp eyes then drifted back to a specific term left lingering on the screen.
The Professional Mercenary System.
He understood the core concept perfectly, you recruited desperate men with zero job prospects and turned them into professional, paid soldiers.
"I am incredibly curious about the exact military structure of this supposedly invincible Great Tang," Kongming murmured, tapping his feather fan against his palm.
In Kongming's brilliant mind, the outcome of a war was decided in the planning room long before a single sword was drawn.
Logistics, supply chain management, troop morale, and the tactical ceiling of the commanding generals.
These were the true metrics of victory.
A dynasty that possessed martial glory as legendary as the Tang definitely operated on a highly unique, deeply refined military doctrine.
"I truly wish I could study their ledgers with my own eyes," Kongming sighed wistfully.
"You and me both," Zhang Fei boomed from the corner, though his focus was entirely different.
"Except I just want to see exactly how much evil these spoiled aristocratic brats committed to literally spawn a monster like Huang Chao."
Kongming opened his mouth to reply, but ultimately decided to remain silent. The horrors of history were often beyond imagination.
"Tossed into the exact same boiling pot."
Inside the grand Ganlu Hall of Chang'an, the elite ministers of the Zhenguan era muttered the poem's final line under their breath.
A profound, bone-chilling hatred radiated from those simple words, sending a collective shiver down the spines of the Tang cabinet.
Wei Zheng, the notoriously stubborn moral compass of the court, suddenly felt a cold, sweat completely soaking through his inner robes.
He was a devout Confucian scholar.
He worshipped the path of righteous kingship, he never hesitated to scream at the Emperor's face if he felt a policy was unjust.
He honestly believed he lived a life completely free of guilt, a true champion of the empire.
But a horrifying realization just struck him like a physical blow. In the desperate, starving eyes of the brutally oppressed peasants, the righteous Wei Zheng probably looked exactly the same as the most corrupt, parasitic nobles.
To the mob, he was just another wealthy lord in a silk robe standing on their necks.
[Lightscreen]
["Wait until the eighth day of the ninth lunar month."
"When my flowers bloom, all other flowers shall be slaughtered."
"A heaven-piercing fragrance of rebellion will permeate Chang'an."
"And the entire city will be clad in golden armor."
We are all incredibly familiar with this legendary, blood-soaked poem. The title? Composed After Failing the Imperial Examination.
Failing the exam.
That is the core trauma, in his youth, Huang Chao traveled to the glorious capital of Chang'an.
His only dream was to pass the test, network with the elite nobles, and happily join their corrupt political machine. He wanted to be a rich bureaucrat, but he failed.
And from that bitter, crushing rejection, this terrifying poem was born.
Huang Chao came from a family of wealthy, illegal salt smugglers. He had money.
But to the hyper-elite, incredibly snobby aristocratic circles of the capital, being a rich merchant meant absolutely nothing. The noble families only married each other. They only praised each other, they formed an impenetrable, hermetically sealed social club.
It was an invisible wall of absolute privilege.
If the glass ceiling before the An Lushan Rebellion was thick, the glass ceiling of the Late Tang era was reinforced with military-grade titanium.
Huang Chao arrived in the capital desperate to sell his soul to the noble clans of Chang'an. The noble clans aggressively slapped him in the face and told him he was trash.
So, right before he packed his bags to leave Chang'an in disgrace, he wrote this poem. It was the ultimate, historical equivalent of saying, "I will be back for blood."
The pampered nobles of Chang'an treated the angry poem like a hilarious joke.
Just a salty loser throwing a tantrum.
They never expected that exactly ten years later, Huang Chao would return to keep his promise, he turned the entire capital into a slaughterhouse, and it was his turn to treat the highest lords of the empire like a hilarious joke.
Now, Huang Chao's level of resentment was not formed in a vacuum. It was a direct reaction to the absolute, shameless rot of the late Tang bureaucracy.
Let us look at a few examples of exactly how brain-dead the government had become.
During the reign of Emperor Wuzong, a massive locust plague swept across the empire in autumn.
From east to west, the swarms devoured every single blade of grass, leaving absolute devastation in their wake. But the Prefect of the Capital District, a man named Yang Zhizhi, submitted an official report to the throne.
The Prefect wrote, "Your Majesty, the locusts have entered the capital region. However, awed by your divine grace, they have refused to eat our crops. Instead, the locusts have all hugged the thorny bushes and committed mass suicide."
Any human being with a functioning brain would have spat directly in the Prefect's face upon reading such blatant, insulting trash. But what did the imperial court do? The Prime Ministers officially congratulated him on his miraculous leadership.
Then we have the reign of Emperor Xuanzong. An elite scholar named Cui Rao passed the Imperial Examination and was eventually appointed as the Regional Inspector of Shaanxi. A catastrophic drought struck the region. Desperate, starving peasants crawled to his office, begging for disaster relief.
Cui Rao smugly pointed at a single, surviving tree in his private courtyard. "Look at those green leaves," he mocked the peasants. "What drought are you talking about?" He then ordered his guards to brutally beat the peasants with wooden clubs and throw them into the street.
Karma eventually caught up with him. Cui Rao later got into a political feud with a local military warlord and was violently driven out of his office. He became a refugee himself. Suffering from extreme thirst on the road, he knocked on a peasant's door, begging for water.
The peasants were incredibly kind. They gave him a massive bowl of fresh, warm urine to drink.
Since diabetes was a rare disease among the poor, we can safely assume Inspector Cui did not experience a sweet aftertaste.
It gets even funnier during the reign of Emperor Yizong. A massive rebellion led by Qiu Fu exploded in the southeast, throwing the region into absolute chaos. Emperor Yizong summoned a famous general named Wang Shi and asked for a strategic solution.
General Wang Shi gave a completely normal military answer. "Give me an army, and I will instantly crush the rebels."
But the eunuchs standing next to the Emperor aggressively shook their heads. "Sending an army costs way too much money. We decline."
General Wang Shi panicked. He delivered a massive, passionate speech detailing the terrifying consequences of letting the rebellion spread. He laid out the absolute necessity of a rapid military strike. By the end of the speech, Emperor Yizong was thoroughly convinced.
But being convinced meant absolutely nothing. Emperor Yizong nervously turned his head, looked at his pet eunuch, and politely asked, "Um, I think we should probably give General Wang the troops. Is that okay with you?"
Only after the eunuch graciously nodded did the Emperor approve the deployment.
And finally, we reach Emperor Xizong. He was undoubtedly the most multi-talented, artistically gifted Emperor in the entire history of the Tang dynasty.
Horse racing, archery, sword dancing, betting on goose fights, composing music, playing ancient soccer, cockfighting, and hound racing.
The man was an absolute master of every single useless hobby on earth, and he was completely obsessed with playing polo.
Emperor Xizong once bragged to his favorite court jester, an actor named Shi Yezhu. The Emperor proudly declared, "If they ever added Polo to the Imperial Examination, I would undoubtedly win the rank of Top Scholar!"
Shi Yezhu possessed a sharp wit, he immediately replied, "Well, if the legendary sage kings Yao and Shun were the grading examiners, Your Majesty would undoubtedly be exiled for playing games instead of ruling!"
While Emperor Xizong was busy dreaming about his imaginary Ph.D. in Polo, Huang Chao had already survived the most brutal phase of his rebellion.
He was currently marching a massive army of millions directly toward Chang'an.]
Surprisingly, Li Shimin's reaction to this avalanche of stupidity was shockingly calm.
Part of his restraint was due to Empress Zhangsun, who was currently gripping his hands with the strength of a vice, silently threatening him not to pop a blood vessel.
The other part was pure, cynical resignation. To Li Shimin, the collapse of the Northern and Southern Dynasties was recent history.
He knew exactly how Emperor Wu of Liang had been starved to death in his own palace. He understood the life cycle of a dying empire. When the rot set in, it infected everyone from the emperor down to the lowest clerk.
Furthermore, Li Shimin literally could not control the actions of Li Longji, who was only a few generations away.
It was physically impossible to expect him to control these distant, deeply pathetic descendants who were utterly enslaved by the aristocratic clans.
But even with his newfound restraint, Li Shimin could not stop himself from delivering a few choice insults. He had a reputation to uphold.
"Do these Prime Ministers view their Emperor as a toddler with severe brain damage?" Li Shimin scoffed loudly.
The idea that a swarm of locusts would be intimidated by imperial majesty and commit mass suicide by hugging thorns was the most insulting lie he had ever heard. Li Shimin had literally swallowed a live locust in front of his court to prove a point about sharing the people's suffering.
He was far more willing to believe that the corrupt aristocratic clans would hug thorny bushes and commit mass suicide.
Assuming, of course, that Li Shimin was standing directly behind them with a drawn broadsword.
"This Cui Rao," Wei Zheng spat out, his face twisted in absolute disgust. "He occupies a high office but possesses zero competence. He completely deserved the humiliation from the peasants."
Still furious, Wei Zheng added a devastating historical comparison. "He is literally no better than the mentally disabled Emperor Hui of Jin, who asked starving people why they did not just eat meat porridge!"
Fang Xuanling, eager to participate in the roasting session, respectfully disagreed.
"Emperor Hui of Jin was born with a severe mental deficiency," Fang Xuanling argued analytically. "We can understand why he spoke such foolish words. But this Cui Rao? He was raised in a massive mansion. He passed the highest literary examinations in the land. To be completely ignorant of a catastrophic drought is not just stupidity. It is sheer, malicious incompetence!"
Li Shiji carefully added his own military perspective. "And the fact that he was chased out of his own province by a local warlord proves he was an entirely useless, pathetic administrator."
Du Ruhui watched his three colleagues dog-pile on the corrupt official with a highly amused smirk. He knew exactly what they were doing. They had just been lightly scolded by the Emperor for admiring the aristocratic clans. Now, they were aggressively performing their loyalty by loudly cursing the aristocratic product.
However, Du Ruhui's amusement quickly faded. He remembered his own tragic future, he was destined to die young, and his own son was destined to get entangled in a massive treason plot.
His good mood instantly evaporated into depression.
Having ignored his squabbling ministers, Li Shimin delivered his final, brutal verdict on his descendants.
"This Emperor Yizong," Li Shimin sneered. "Does he honestly believe the Li clan shares the empire with castrated servants? Pathetic."
He turned his cold eyes to the final name. "And this Emperor Xizong. Previously, the screen only mentioned that he cowardly abandoned Chang'an and ran away to Chengdu. I had absolutely no idea he was such a talented, versatile clown."
Li Shimin shook his head in absolute disbelief. "Compared to this polo-playing idiot, Liu Bei's son, Liu Shan genuinely looks like a legendary, enlightened sage king!"
Despite constantly reminding himself to stay calm, Li Shimin felt a very familiar, very dangerous throbbing sensation returning to his temples.
His migraine was definitely coming back.
In Chengdu, Liu Bei unleashed a violent, echoing sneeze.
He rubbed his nose and looked up at the sky. The weather was perfectly warm today. It was quite strange. Someone must have been talking about him.
Dismissing the sneeze, Liu Bei offered his own strategic evaluation of the polo-playing Tang Emperor.
"Chengdu is a highly fortified, deeply isolated mountain basin," Liu Bei noted sagely. "When this Tang Emperor fled here, I highly doubt his impressive skills in goose-fighting and polo provided any tactical advantage whatsoever."
The mention of Chengdu naturally brought his own son, Liu Shan, to mind.
"The fact that my A'dou did not completely ruin Chengdu during his reign is entirely due to the brilliant, tireless education provided by the Prime Minister," Liu Bei praised sincerely.
"Not at all, my lord," Kongming immediately bowed, refusing to take the credit. "The young master inherited your deep, natural kindness. That is not my achievement."
It was true. Even when Liu Shan eventually placed too much trust in the eunuch Huang Hao, it was born out of naive affection, not absolute, crippling subservience. This Tang Emperor Yizong literally begged his eunuchs for permission to govern.
Kongming suddenly thought of a horrifying internet joke the screen had mentioned in a previous broadcast. The futuristic scholars constantly joked about using a time machine to swap Liu Shan with Emperor Zhao Gou of the Song dynasty.
If they actually made that swap, the legendary Song General Yue Fei would undoubtedly weep tears of absolute joy at getting a sweet, compliant boss like Liu Shan.
But if Kongming had to serve as Prime Minister to a treacherous, cowardly snake like Zhao Gou?
Kongming aggressively shook his head, physically forcing the terrifying nightmare out of his brain. That is a fate worse than death.
Pang Tong, meanwhile, had been silently rereading Huang Chao's chrysanthemum poem. A look of genuine, begrudging respect crossed his face.
"The cultural dominance of the Great Tang is truly terrifying," Pang Tong admitted. "Even a ruthless rebel warlord..."
Pang Tong paused, searching for a slightly more polite term. "Even an anti-government insurgent leader possesses such a formidable command of poetry. The vocabulary is relatively straightforward, but the sheer, oppressive killing intent hidden within the imagery is as heavy as a collapsing mountain."
Mi Zhu, ever the pragmatist, offered a brilliant economic explanation for the phenomenon.
"I suspect it has everything to do with the mass production of cheap paper," Mi Zhu analyzed. "In their era, even poor commoners can afford to study books and practice writing. It is infinitely easier than carving on bamboo slips like we do."
Mi Zhu gestured toward the screen. "Furthermore, the screen explained their toxic networking culture. If writing a beautiful poem is the only way to get a job or secure a meeting with a powerful official, the entire society will naturally obsess over poetry. They do not hand out business cards. They hand out murderously good poems."
Everyone in the room nodded slowly. Mi Zhu's logic was flawless. It was basic supply and demand.
While they were marveling at the cultural shift, Liu Bei suddenly turned and firmly clapped his third brother on the shoulder.
"You hear that, Yide?" Liu Bei smiled warmly. "You need to study harder."
Zhang Fei's face scrunched up into a massive mask of pure confusion. He stared blankly at his eldest brother.
Liu Bei chuckled. "When you eventually conquer the western deserts and drive out the barbarians, you cannot just carve a generic, boring victory message on a rock. That is out of style now. You need to write something devastating."
Zhang Fei crossed his massive, muscular arms and fell into deep, violent contemplation.
Carving a message on a cliff face was pretty cool. But writing a poem about slaughtering all the other flowers? That possessed a very specific, undeniable swagger. He needed to brainstorm some punchy rhymes.
[Lightscreen]
[Huang Chao's violent uprising was essentially an inevitable force of nature. Because by this specific year, the Tang dynasty had completely dug its own grave and was simply waiting to be pushed in.
In this specific year, the eunuchs held absolute, tyrannical control over the government.
The local bureaucrats were astonishingly corrupt.
The regional warlords blatantly ignored imperial orders.
The border wars were a complete disaster.
And the taxation on the peasants was so brutally heavy that society was fundamentally disintegrating.
A man named Wang Xianzhi fired the first shot of the rebellion, the very next year, Huang Chao rallied thousands of furious men and joined the cause.
After suffering under the suffocating boots of the aristocrats for decades, the common people flocked to their banners like starving wolves, the rebel army rapidly exploded into a massive force of tens of thousands.
The Tang government initially tried a military crackdown. But Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao were masters of guerrilla warfare.
They ran faster than the government troops.
Furthermore, the imperial court refused to properly fund the army, and the local warlords felt that killing broke farmers was a waste of their valuable time, the suppression campaign completely stalled.
Realizing the sword was not working, the Tang court switched to bribery. Emperor Xizong sent a secret messenger to Wang Xianzhi.
The message was simple: "Submit to the throne, and we will give you a shiny official title. You can join our corrupt club!"
Wang Xianzhi was highly tempted by the offer. Huang Chao, however, was absolutely disgusted. The two rebel leaders got into a massive, screaming fistfight, completely broke their alliance, and marched their armies in opposite directions.
Because they split their forces, Wang Xianzhi was eventually hunted down and decapitated. This left Huang Chao as the sole, undisputed leader of the entire rebellion.
His men crowned him with the magnificent title of "The Heaven-Piercing General."
You have to give Huang Chao credit for his strategic vision, facing a massive encirclement by imperial warlords, he executed a brilliant fighting retreat.
He marched his army all the way down to the south, successfully storming the wealthy port city of Guangzhou, his plan was to establish a secure base, build up his economy, and prepare a massive counter-attack against the Tang.
However, the deep south was completely untamed. The northern rebel soldiers suffered terribly from the tropical climate, a massive plague broke out in the camps, killing tens of thousands of his men, the survivors panicked and demanded to go home.
To stop a full-scale mutiny, Huang Chao pivoted his strategy.
He officially declared a Northern Expedition.
He raised a massive banner promising to "Exterminate the Corrupt Officials" and marched his army back north.
The return trip was not exactly a smooth ride, he initially crushed several major cities like Yongzhou, Hengzhou, Tanzhou, and Jiangling.
But then, he suffered a tragic, crushing defeat at Jingmen, his army was nearly wiped out.
He only managed to survive by faking a tearful surrender and aggressively bribing the imperial commanders with massive chests of stolen gold. He barely escaped into Jiangxi.
The very next year, he suffered another catastrophic defeat in Jiangxi. So, he pulled the exact same trick again, he faked another surrender, bribed a different set of warlords, and miraculously escaped into Zhejiang.
But once he hit Zhejiang, Huang Chao officially unlocked the second phase of his life.
The boss music started playing.
He went on an absolute, unstoppable rampage.
In a mere six months, he completely steamrolled through Jiangxi, Anhui, and Henan provinces.]