"This is the Nanhai No. 1... a shipwreck."
Ganlu Hall and the Chengdu government office both fell silent.
The light screen showed a ruined vessel resting quietly on the seabed. Half-buried in layers of silt, the ancient ship leaned slightly to one side. Its timbers were cracked and dark with age, covered in pale barnacles and tangled strands of seaweed that drifted slowly with the currents. Sunlight filtered through the water above, turning the surrounding sea into shifting shades of blue and gold.
This was a scene that completely defied the imagination of Li Shimin, Kongming, and Liu Bei.
Zhang Fei stared for a while before muttering under his breath, "These future people really can go anywhere they want, huh? Fly in the sky, dive into the sea..."
For a brief, fleeting second, he felt a sharp pang of envy toward the "Xuande" who had been sent to the future in previous videos.
He wanted to go there too.
He wanted to experience soaring through the clouds, plunging into the water, and riding that terrifyingly fast high-speed rail he had agonized over for days. And maybe, just maybe, he could visit a modern temple and burn a stick of incense for his big brother.
Liu Bei, completely unaware of Zhang Fei's wandering thoughts, narrowed his eyes at the projection. "What are those small figures beside the ship?"
Pang Tong and Zhuge Liang leaned forward simultaneously.
"People," they answered together.
As the image zoomed closer, the figures became clear. Human beings dressed in tight black clothing floated beside the wreck, communicating through rapid hand signals underwater.
"By the High Ancestor above!" Liu Bei shouted involuntarily.
What was he looking at? Before he could speak again, a gigantic steel structure descended from above.
It resembled the jaws of some enormous sea beast, opening wide as it slowly enclosed the entire wreck.
Inside Ganlu Hall, Li Shimin grasped the concept immediately. "By the heavens... They plan to lift the whole damn ship out of the ocean?"
No one bothered to answer the Emperor, everyone was too busy staring.
The divers secured the rigging around the wreck, exchanged a final signal, and the massive metal frame slowly began rising toward the surface with the ancient vessel trapped inside.
The camera followed it upward.
Only after the screen broke through the ocean surface did the ancients finally see the full scale of the operation.
A towering steel crane stood above the sea like a mechanical giant. Chains groaned. Metal cables tightened. The enormous framework containing the Nanhai No. 1 slowly rose dripping from the water.
Du Ruhui stared blankly for a long moment before speaking in disbelief.
"Human strength has limits... but this 'science' truly seems capable of moving mountains and overturning seas."
Everyone had guessed that the future generations intended to do something with the sunken ship, but absolutely no one anticipated a salvage operation of this godlike scale.
The scene shifted abruptly. The ancient ship had been relocated. It now rested peacefully inside a massive, crystal-clear indoor pool. The camera pushed in tight, allowing the ancient audiences to study the relic in immaculate detail.
---
[Lightscreen]
[During the Song dynasty, particularly the Southern Song, the empire relied heavily on the Maritime Silk Road.
At that time, the Song faced a massive deficit in both domestic demand and foreign trade. To make matters worse, the population was recovering rapidly, but arable land was shrinking due to lost territories.
Therefore, becoming a merchant or an artisan became a highly viable path for the common folk. This shift in the labor force created a feedback loop that supercharged commercial development.
The Nanhai No. 1 is a perfect snapshot of this era.
It was a merchant vessel that sailed the Maritime Silk Road during the Southern Song, roughly the twelfth to thirteenth century. Its hull was packed with goods destined for foreign markets: porcelain from Jingdezhen, ceramics from Dehua and Cizhou, copper coins, gold and silver jewelry, and the personal belongings of its crew.
Then, somewhere along its voyage, disaster struck. Most likely a sudden, violent storm. The ship capsized and was swallowed by the sea, buried in silt for over eight hundred years
The seafaring prowess of the Song dynasty can essentially be summarized by two crucial technologies. It began with the compass, and it culminated in the watertight bulkhead.
The Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques and Shen Kuo's Dream Pool Essays both recorded the methods for manufacturing a magnetic compass.
With this single tool, coastal navigation became a reliable science, using the compass as a baseline safety net, Song sailors unlocked a massive skill tree of maritime technology. Mastering monsoon patterns, drafting preliminary nautical charts, predicting maritime weather, conducting celestial navigation, probing coastal hydrology, establishing ship-to-ship communication.
Later, after the Southern Song lost even more of their northern territories, their desperation and reliance on maritime trade skyrocketed. This pressure cooker of necessity forced them to invent the watertight bulkhead, a revolutionary shipbuilding technique that put them centuries ahead of the Western world.]
The narration was accompanied by rich, detailed illustrations and diagrams. Even Empress Zhangsun watched with rapt attention, finding that she could understand the vast majority of the concepts.
The manufacturing process for the compass, for instance, was simple. The screen showed a tiny, delicate needle resting on a thumbnail, allowing a sailor to check his bearings at a moment's notice. It was practically magic in its convenience.
The watertight bulkhead concept, however, looked so incredibly straightforward that it left her slightly puzzled.
"Such an alteration to the hull seems so simple to the eye," she whispered, leaning closely toward Li Shimin. "How could the world have wasted hundreds of years without thinking of it?"
Li Shimin gestured for his scribes to frantically copy down the diagrams before turning to his wife with a low, knowing sigh. "Is the art of woodblock printing not exactly the same? The method of carving words into stone steles has existed since the pre-Qin era. And yet..."
Empress Zhangsun nodded slowly, the realization dawning on her. The underlying logic of woodblock printing and stone carving was identical. But without the invention of cheap, accessible paper by Cai Lun, the world could not take that final, crucial step. It was all a matter of timing and foundation.
Lightscreen]
[Beyond the interconnected nature of the Four Great Inventions, the Song dynasty also began the very first attempts to systematically study and understand the physical rules of the world.
Following this philosophy, the research conducted by Song scholars exploded into a dizzying array of fields, covering almost every aspect of existence.
Cheng Hao, after observing the stars from the ocean, actually attempted to calculate the physical distance from the Earth to the Moon. While his final numbers were flawed due to the incomplete cosmological models of his time, it was a massive leap forward in the field of astrophysics.
In the Postscript to the Eastern Observations, he used the growth cycles and temperature variations of yellow chives he ate in three different locations over three months to theorize the existence of latitude and longitude.
He had inadvertently stepped into the realm of geophysics.
Later, the polymath Shen Kuo recorded a wildly diverse collection of research in his Dream Pool Essays.
In Volume Three, based on his investigation of the Xie Zhou salt lakes, he documented early chemical research regarding colloidal solutions.
In Volume Six, he plucked the strings of two identical pipas in an empty room, laying down the foundational acoustic principles of resonance and sympathetic vibration.
Volume Nineteen delved into the physics of optics by studying bronze light-penetrating mirrors. Furthermore, Shen Kuo personally corrected the anatomical errors in China's very first medical diagram of human internal organs.
But Shen Kuo's true mastery lay in astronomy. He upgraded the armillary sphere used for measuring celestial coordinates, discovered that true solar days vary in length, recorded the precise orbital trajectories of the five visible planets, and measured the actual distance between the North Star and the true North Celestial Pole, achieving the highest degree of accuracy in the world at that time. His endless curiosity also bled into topography, cartography, water management, pharmacology, military strategy, and even the fine arts.
After Shen Kuo, the undisputed titan of mathematical research was Qin Jiushao.
He tackled numerical solutions for high-order equations, cracked polynomial congruences, and streamlined the algorithms for multiplication and division.
His masterwork, the Mathematical Nine Chapters, remains one of the absolute zenith achievements of traditional Chinese mathematics.]
Back in the Chengdu office, Kongming had been doing his absolute best to keep up. He could, through sheer intellect and educated guessing, vaguely grasp the concepts of physics, optics, and astronomy.
But when the screen transitioned to the mathematics section, displaying Qin Jiushao's work, the great Wolong of Shu experienced a sensation he had not felt since childhood. He was listening to the celestial babble of the gods, and he understood absolutely nothing.
Pang Tong noticed Kongming's brows locked in a tight, distressed knot. Oh boy.... Please, Kongming. Do not tell me you actually understand this mathematical sorcery.
He leaned over, his voice laced with cautious concern. "Kongming, do you harbor some doubts about this?"
Kongming stared at the dense, cryptic equations of Qin Jiushao. His eyes were wide with pure bewilderment.
Finally, he shook his head with brutal honesty. "This mathematics... I do not comprehend a single stroke of it."
The collective exhalation of breath in the room was almost comical. Not only did Pang Tong visibly relax, but Zhang Song, Liu Ba, and even Liu Bei let out heavy sighs of relief.
"Ah, well," Pang Tong said, quickly smoothing over the awkwardness. "The scholarship of future generations truly surpasses imagination. Being separated by hundreds of years, it is only natural we cannot immediately grasp everything."
Liu Ba and Zhang Song nodded vigorously, entirely in agreement. If Zhuge Liang himself could not understand it, then everyone else could stop feeling ashamed, right?
Kongming, however, slowly shook his head again.
He was well-read in the classics and possessed a solid foundation in ancient astronomy.
By piecing together the screen's vague descriptions of celestial orbits with the satellite maps they had seen earlier, a terrifying, worldview-shattering hypothesis was forming in his mind.
The land beneath their feet...
Could the world itself actually be a sphere?
If so...
Why did people not fall off the bottom?
For the first time in his life, Zhuge Liang genuinely felt lost.
---
Meanwhile, inside Ganlu Hall, Li Shimin was looking left and right, trying to gauge the temperature of the room.
Truthfully, the moment the light screen started talking about physics, his brain had checked out. As for the latter half of the video, Li Shimin successfully processed exactly two pieces of information: the name Shen Kuo and the name Qin Jiushao. That was it !!
When the screen flashed the diagrams used to explain Qin Jiushao's algorithms, they looked like the crazed, squiggly talismans drawn by fraudulent Taoist exorcists.
Li Shimin was genuinely shocked. What sorcery is this? Are those even Chinese characters?
Deciding to seek comfort in numbers, he observed his ministers.
Yuchi Jingde's eyes were completely unfocused, radiating the confidence of a man who understood absolutely nothing.
Li Shimin nodded secretly to himself. Hah, excellent. I am not the only fool in the room.
He then focused his hearing on Li Jing and Li Shiji, who were huddled together whispering.
The Emperor expected a profound military analysis, but he nearly burst out laughing when he realized what they were actually discussing. The two grand marshals had completely abandoned any attempt to understand the math.
Instead, they were hotly debating which weapon was superior: the iron cannon or the Dongfeng Express.
While the Dongfeng missile was undeniably apocalyptic in its visual impact, Li Shiji argued that it looked ruinously expensive and complicated to build.
The giant iron cannon, on the other hand, just required a massive foundry and some basic casting techniques. It was practical.
The two generals had even forged a quiet pact. The moment court was dismissed, they were going to pay a friendly visit to a few prominent Taoist monasteries around Chang'an and politely convince the monks to hand over every single gunpowder recipe they had.
Li Shimin shook his head, highly amused. That is exactly the kind of pragmatic ruthlessness I expect from my generals.
On the civil side of the hall, however, the atmosphere was grim.
Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, and Wei Zheng looked like eggplants left out in the winter frost. They were completely defeated. Catching the Emperor's eye, they immediately began pouring out their grievances.
"Your Majesty, are those mathematical symbols truly the language of Huaxia? Why is it that when they are placed together, the meaning is entirely lost to me?"
"The difficulty of this 'Mother of Science' is truly extraordinary. This subject... I do not know how to read it."
"Your Majesty, this minister understands the livelihood of the people, I am versed in water management, and I know the ancient texts by heart. But this mathematics is a closed door to me. I implore Your Majesty to summon scholars of unique talents to study this immediately."
Li Shimin threw his head back and roared with laughter.
It was a joyous, unburdened sound, echoing with the deep, mutual sympathy of the proudly uneducated.
---
Lightscreen]
[The research of our ancestors has always operated on a simple principle, success does not have to belong to me alone. Science is exactly the same.
On this long road, some buried their heads in hard labor, some fought desperately against the limits of their era, and some sacrificed their very lives to seek the truth.
Take Tao Chengdao of the Ming dynasty, for example. He did not hesitate to give his life in his attempt to achieve human flight with a rocket-powered chair.
And now, in our modern era, standing upon the foundational knowledge of those ancient sages, we use mathematics as our ultimate tool.
We have synthesized physics, astronomy, materials science, mechanical engineering, fluid dynamics, electromagnetism, and spatial attitude dynamics. Because of them, we are finally able to step outside the cradle of the Earth and take a look around.]
---
Every pair of eyes in both Ganlu Hall and the Chengdu office was glued to the light screen.
They had not even found the time to process the sheer bravery of this man named Tao Chengdao. The scene shifted violently, and they were confronted with a colossal, towering machine.
It looked remarkably similar to the Dongfeng Express they had seen earlier, a sleek, terrifying blade pointing directly at the heavens. A torrent of fire, roaring with the fury of heavenly retribution, erupted from its base. The blade of steel slowly, agonizingly lifted off the launch pad.
The same terrified question popped into the minds of the men in both eras. "Where are they aiming that thing?"
But the question was answered before it could even be spoken. They watched the mighty construct climb higher and higher, piercing the clouds, shattering the high-altitude gales, and continuing its relentless ascent.
The screen's perspective became obscured by a thick layer of white frost and vapor. It violently shook as it pushed through the final barriers of the atmosphere.
And then, the vapor cleared.
There was no more wind. There was no more sky. Presented before the awe-struck eyes of the ancients was a limitless, bottomless, silent void, scattered with the cold, piercing light of a billion distant stars.
"There are... there are pavilions in the sky," Zhang Fei stammered, his voice devoid of its usual thunder, sounding like a lost child. "Are those the immortals?"
Floating silently into the frame from the side was a massive, pristine white structure of bizarre, angular architecture. It bristled with golden panels and strange metallic wings.
The light screen gently dissolved their superstitions with a line of text.
[Welcome to the Chinese International Space Station: Tiangong.]
The camera angle slowly tilted downward, panning away from the station and the stars. A colossal, breathtaking sphere of swirling blue oceans and majestic white clouds drifted into the frame, filling their vision with impossible beauty.
[Come. Say hello to our Mother Earth.]