"Divine General!"
The title struck a chord deep within Li Shimin. He had been utterly enamored by the phrase ever since he first watched the life of Zhang Yichao unfold on the glowing screen.
In fact, he had been so deeply moved that he privately brushed a calligraphic scroll reading, "From ancient Dunhuang, a Divine General arises," lamenting only that he could not personally draft Zhang Yichao into his court to break new ground for the Tang.
And now, this Wang Zhongsi had arrived.
To put it simply, the man was custom-built to satisfy every single one of Li Shimin's preferences. The loyal descendant of a fallen warrior; meticulous in deployment, spectacularly bold in strategy, yet carrying none of the arrogant hubris that usually came with such talent.
Granted, even with such a peerless commander at his disposal, Emperor Xuanzong had still failed to avert the cataclysm of the An Lushan Rebellion. But a man of Wang Zhongsi's caliber must have at least shielded the empire from dozens of disasters before the dam broke, right?
Taking a few deep, stabilizing breaths, Li Shimin felt his mood lift. At least the screen had temporarily stopped forcing him to look at the smug face of An Lushan.
Yet the final, vaguely ominous sentence flashing on the light screen made his chest tighten. Did this Wang Zhongsi share the same fate as Huo Qubing, burning bright only to be snatched away by an early death?
He shook his head, pushing the distant anxiety aside. Lowering his gaze, Li Shimin focused on the top line of the text Du Ruhui had been furiously transcribing.
"The War Gods of the Early Tang..."
Li Shimin muttered the names under his breath. "Li Jing... Li Ji... but who on earth is this Su Dingfang?"
Li Jing's inclusion was an absolute given, and Li Ji's presence was entirely within expectations. But this third name, a moniker he had never once encountered in his own court, left the Emperor bewildered.
Turning around, Li Shimin cast a helpless, inquiring glance toward the two military heavyweights standing in the hall.
At this point, Hou Junji's polite smile was visibly fraying at the edges, though he still made a strained effort to clasp his hands in a respectful salute toward Li Jing.
Li Jing, ever the picture of veteran composure, offered a reserved, modest smile. "Your Imperial Majesty, the historic achievements of this Su Dingfang were actually personally authorized and elevated by your own hand."
"Oh?" Li Shimin's eyebrows shot up. He immediately forced his memory to sprint backward. A man intimately acquainted with Li Jing, who had participated in the campaigns of recent years...
The vast library of military dispatches and merit-reward rosters he had personally signed began to flash before his eyes.
Suddenly, a specific name burst through the clutter.
"Su Lie?"
"Precisely, Su Lie," Li Jing confirmed with a slow, decisive nod. "During the campaign at Mount Yin, Su Lie served as the vanguard. He personally spearheaded a ferocious charge of just two hundred riders, shattering Illig Qaghan's imperial yurt before the enemy could even sound the alarm."
The memory locked into place, and Li Shimin snapped his fingers. "After the battle, his merit was raised by one full rank, and he was officially granted the title of Zuo Wuwei Zhonglang Jiang, Middle Commander of the Left Martial Guard."
In the exact same heartbeat, the Emperor also remembered the low-level position this Su Lie had occupied before that glorious mountain raid. Jijie Xiaowei, Assault Commander of the Kuangdao Garrison.
Li Shimin let out a long, conflicted sigh. "To think I have such a monstrously talented commander sitting right beneath my nose, completely unutilized. The moment this meeting ends, I am issuing a personal summons for him."
It was entirely understandable why Li Shimin was in such a frantic rush. Where exactly was the Kuangdao Garrison? A small, unremarkable military post managing a handful of streets in the southwestern corner of Chang'an.
To make matters worse, that specific area was famous for housing exactly two historical graves. One belonging to the tragic Empress Wei Zifu, and the other belonging to the executed Crown Prince Ju.
A military posting like that, right under the Emperor's nose, was basically no different from a street sweeper. Truly, the pinnacle of warrior glory.
When one factored in Su Lie's political baggage as a former vanguard officer under the rebel Liu Heita, Li Shimin could effortlessly deduce the tragic reality. In the original timeline displayed on the light screen, this legendary warrior had likely spent a full decade trapped in this mind-numbing, street-sweeping limbo.
But history had shifted. Today, the Emperor was sharpening his blades, and there would be no shortage of grand stages where a man of Su Lie's caliber could unleash his full potential.
Witnessing this interaction, Hou Junji felt an even heavier wave of depression wash over him. He directed a deeply resentful, brooding glare toward Li Jing, completely ignored by the older general.
---
Back in the Chengdu government office, Zhang Fei watched the text describe the Tibetan Emperor's clumsy imitation of Sun Quan's panicked retreat, bursting into a booming laugh.
"Well, I will be damned! I have finally figured it out!" Zhang Fei roared, slapping his thigh. "Every single time history records one of these miraculous battles where a few hundred men rout tens of thousands, the core ingredients are exactly the same!"
"Oh?" Zhao Yun turned, adopting an attitude of genuine, scholarly curiosity. He pulled out a small leather-bound notebook, intending to learn a few tactical secrets from the veteran vanguard. "Please, Yide, break it down for us."
Zhang Fei began counting on his thick fingers with comical seriousness. "When your numbers are painfully small, the formula is simple. Your soldiers must forget the concept of fear, and your general must be the first lunatic to leap into the enemy spears."
"And when your numbers are massive? That is even simpler." Zhang Fei grinned, flashing his teeth. "You just need the supreme commander of the enemy army to act exactly like our brilliant brother-in-law, Sun Quan!"
Zhao Yun's face went flat. He quietly closed the notebook he had just opened and slipped it back into his robes. "Alright, Yide. Truly, you are a genius."
He had honestly believed he was about to receive a masterclass in unorthodox vanguard deployment. Instead, Zhang Fei had merely pointed out a lightning-in-a-bottle scenario that was impossible to replicate by design.
As for the future generations labeling these men as Gods of War, the ministers and generals gathered in Chengdu did not show much surprise. An era of wealth and military dominance like the Great Tang would be a statistical anomaly if it did not produce a few monsters on the battlefield.
Besides, even this peerless Wang Zhongsi had lived his entire life chasing the shadow of Huo Qubing.
And that was the beauty of it. Huo Qubing belonged to the heritage of the Han. The men of the Three Kingdoms felt no need to envy a future era when their own ancestors had already set the gold standard for military perfection.
Kongming, however, was trapped in a dual state of mind. On one hand, he looked at the material abundance of the Tang military, the endless supply of elite warhorses, the pristine iron armor, the flawless weaponry, with a profound, lingering envy.
On the other hand, a subtle, cold dread began to prickle at the back of his mind. The narrative tone filtering through the light screen was turning dark.
---
[Lightscreen]
[During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, the court established a strict, paranoid countermeasure to keep the massive power of the regional Military Governors in check. The immediate families and relatives of these commanders were legally required to reside in the capital city of Chang'an, serving as high-society hostages.
In exchange for this compliance, once a Military Governor completed his frontier tenure, he would return to Chang'an to be integrated into the high civil government, receiving lavish estates and premier political offices calculated strictly by the victories he had secured on the border.
It was precisely because of this structural pipeline that the notoriously ruthless Prime Minister, Li Linfu, viewed Wang Zhongsi with deep hostility from the very beginning. Given Wang Zhongsi's record of victory after victory, the moment he stepped down from the frontier and returned to the capital, it would be politically impossible not to hand him the seat of Prime Minister.
What followed was a rapid-fire sequence of three catastrophic political events that triggered the swift, brutal downfall of this Tang War God.
Event Number One. Li Linfu proposed a brand-new imperial initiative to cultivate and promote non-Han, barbarian generals to command the frontier, using them to squeeze out the traditional Han commanders.
When viewed alongside Li Longji's paranoia, the logic becomes obvious.
Barbarian generals possessed no deep roots in the imperial court, making them far easier for the civil bureaucracy to manipulate. Once their frontier service concluded, they lacked the social standing to ever threaten the Prime Minister's grip on civil authority.
Most importantly for Li Linfu, this policy served as a scalpel to carve away at Wang Zhongsi's control over four major border regions.
It was this exact initiative that brought Li Linfu and An Lushan into a tight, symbiotic alliance. Armed with Li Linfu's backing at court and fueled by a non-stop offensive of lavish bribes to the capital's elite, An Lushan began his meteoric ascent.
Event Number Two. The Slander Campaign of Shibo Castle.
Shibo Castle was a strategically vital fortress situated along the Hexi Corridor. For decades, the Tang and the Tibetan Empire had engaged in a bloody game of tug-of-war over its stones, and Li Longji was obsessed with bringing it under imperial control.
Consequently, the moment Wang Zhongsi consolidated his power, Xuanzong issued a remote imperial directive commanding him to launch a full-scale assault to seize the fortress.
However, after surveying the terrain, Wang Zhongsi determined that the fortress was a tactical trap and that the time was not ripe. He slammed a formal memorial onto the Emperor's desk, advising against the waste of Tang warrior lives.
In the year 747 AD, a minor commander named Dong Yanguan stepped forward, volunteering to take Shibo Castle himself. Xuanzong eagerly granted the request, ordering Wang Zhongsi to deploy his regional forces as a supportive rear-guard.
But history proved Wang Zhongsi's assessment correct.
Shibo Castle was a nightmare to assault. Dong Yanguan's forces were violently repulsed, blew past their operational deadline, and failed to crack the gates.
Terrified of imperial execution, Dong Yanguan rushed a panicked memorial to the capital, fabricating a conspiracy that Wang Zhongsi had deliberately delayed his support troops because he was nurturing the enemy to keep his own military importance inflated.
A single accusation of battlefield hesitation was not enough to break an imperial adoptive son of Wang Zhongsi's stature. But Li Linfu had already prepared the final blow.
Event Number Three. The Crown Prince Crisis.
Back in the year 737 AD, Li Longji had unlocked the horrific historical achievement of executing three of his own sons in a single day, purging his own bloodline, including the original Crown Prince. Following that bloody housecleaning, the question of who should inherit the throne left the Emperor conflicted for a considerable time.
The two primary candidates remaining were the Prince of Shou, Li Mao, and the Prince of Zhong, Li Yu.
But there was one small problem, Li Longji had recently stolen the Prince of Shou's wife, Yang Yuhuan, and relocated her to his own bed. So looking his son in the face had become, understandably, a bit awkward.
Consequently, by process of elimination, the candidate no one in the palace liked, Li Yu, was designated as the new Crown Prince, his name formally changed to Li Heng. It is no exaggeration to state that he became the most pathetic, politically castrated heir in the history of the Chinese empire.
Li Longji openly despised him. Li Linfu and the grand eunuch Gao Lishi treated him like a political punching bag, launching constant, unchecked smear campaigns against his household.
Even a foreign barbarian general like An Lushan could openly insult and step on the Crown Prince's dignity just to elicit a chuckle from the Emperor. In fact, this public degradation was one of the core drivers behind An Lushan's eventual rebellion. He was terrified of what would happen to him if Li Heng ever survived long enough to inherit the throne and launch a purge.
Faced with an heir he distrusted, Li Longji maintained an aggressive, paranoid surveillance network over his son's every breath.
In the year 744 AD, Crown Prince Li Heng was suspected of holding a private, unauthorized meeting with a frontier commander. Li Longji erupted, executing every military officer connected to the gathering without a shred of due process.
Fast forward to 747 AD. The moment Dong Yanguan dropped his slanderous report regarding Shibo Castle onto the Emperor's desk, Li Linfu's political instincts flared. He realized the perfect alignment had arrived.
Under his direct orchestration, a low-ranking official named Wei Lin stepped forward with a spectacular piece of testimony. He claimed that during his tenure as the Governor of Shuozhou, his direct superior, the Military Governor of Hedong, Wang Zhongsi, had looked him in the eye and stated: "I spent my childhood residing in the palace alongside the Prince of Zhong; it is my desire to honor and elevate the Crown Prince."
The trap sprung. Li Longji flew into a towering rage, stripping his adoptive son of all titles and dragging him back to the capital in chains. He handed Wang Zhongsi over to the Three Judicial Offices with instructions to use maximum torture.
The legendary War God was beaten so savagely he came within an inch of dying on the cold stone floor of the imperial dungeon.
It was only because Geshu Han, the brilliant general who inherited Wang Zhongsi's command over Longxi, slammed an unyielding petition onto the Emperor's desk, offering his own life and titles as collateral, that Wang Zhongsi was granted a sliver of mercy. His death sentence was commuted, and he was demoted to the minor post of Governor of Hanyang. Two years later, broken in body and spirit, he suffered a sudden, violent death. He was forty-five years old.
At the height of his power in the Hexi Corridor, Wang Zhongsi had held the command of four massive frontier regions. Hedong, Hexi, Longxi, and Shuofang. He held direct authority over two hundred and fifty thousand elite imperial troops.
Furthermore, from the year 744 AD onward, Wang Zhongsi had deployed a non-stop torrent of dispatches to the capital, detailing An Lushan's treasonous movements and begging the Emperor to open his eyes. Li Longji had never once deigned to look at them.
Two men. Both raised as adoptive sons of the Emperor. Both holding the core of the empire's military might in their palms.
Wang Zhongsi, fiercely loyal and bearing a record of one victory after another that secured thousands of miles of the frontier, was broken by slander and died in misery.
An Lushan, weaponizing silver-tongued flattery while possessing a record empty of actual military achievement, bought the hearts of his soldiers in Hebei and launched a cataclysmic war against the throne.
One cannot help but conclude that the third son of the Li Clan brought every ounce of this ruin upon his own head. He built his own execution dock, and he has no one else to blame.]
---
Kongming's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, his face twisted in disbelief.
"Executing three of his own sons in a single day? And one of them was the legally appointed heir?"
He shook his head, struggling to find a diplomatic phrase. "This imperial court of the Li-Tang is... beyond reason."
Beside him, Fa Zheng was already grinning, his fingers flicking rapidly as he tallied up the political scorecard. "Two adoptive sons. He tortures the fiercely loyal one to death and hands an entire northern army to the one planning a rebellion."
"Out of five biological sons we know about, he slaughters three, steals the wife of the fourth for his own harem, and allows the fifth, the Crown Prince, to be publicly humiliated by foreign mercenaries."
"And to top it off, this rebel adoptive son gets unrestricted, overnight access to the private chambers of the imperial concubines, while the state builds him a luxury mansion with tax revenue."
Fa Zheng threw up his hands, unable to contain his laughter. "Out of seven sons, the one with the highest martial capability and the most loyal and capable one receives the cruelest fate... To an outsider looking in, it looks like An Lushan was the only real flesh-and-blood child in that palace!"
"Every obstacle to a successful rebellion was cleared away by Li Longji's own hands! This level of dedicated absurdity is unmatched in the annals of ancient history!"
Zhang Fei rolled his eyes, finding the entire imperial family, with the sole exception of Wang Zhongsi, nauseating. He gave a blunt nod. "As Xiaozhi puts it, if An Lushan had not launched that rebellion, he would have been disrespecting the sheer amount of effort Li Longji put into helping him."
Even Liu Bei let out a slow, tired sigh. "Every Emperor in history lives in terror that his heir will prove incompetent. This Li Longji fellow, however, seems to live in terror that his generals will not rebel fast enough."
He dismissed the family drama with a wave of his hand, his political instincts locking onto the structural rot hidden within the text. "This Li Linfu... he holds the title of Prime Minister, yet he did not care about his legacy at all."
Xu Shu nodded. "A minister consumed by preserving his own power. The logic was simple. And vile."
"To prevent returning frontier commanders from entering the capital and challenging his authority, he deliberately elevated illiterate foreign generals, locking himself into a corrupt alliance with beasts like An Lushan."
"Had that specific proposal never been laid before the throne, the An Lushan Rebellion might have..." Xu Shu paused, recognizing the limits of his data, and shook his head. "A blind, senile sovereign above. A power-mad, scheming parasite below. The collapse of their house was earned in full."
On the edge of the table, Zhang Song had been running the numbers on his writing slate. He suddenly chimed in, "Wait. A man as reliable as Wang Zhongsi could command four regions, controlling two hundred and fifty thousand troops. From this, we can deduce the Tang Dynasty possesses at least seven or eight of these massive military commands across the empire."
"If each command averages sixty thousand men, the total loyalist force must be staggering. If these regional Military Governors coordinate and march together, crushing a single rebel should be straightforward, should it not?"
Zhao Yun immediately shook his head, visualizing the strategic map with cold professionalism. "If we follow your calculations, Ziqiao, the total standing army of the Tang should hover around five hundred thousand men. This means the foreign general already commands thirty percent of the empire's operational strength."
"Thirty percent of the military force, unified under a single command. Meanwhile, the remaining seventy percent is fractured across four or five separate regional governors, all being managed and checked by a deeply paranoid imperial court."
"If they meet on an open field of battle, a loyalist victory is a fragile assumption."
Zhao Yun had phrased his critique with politeness toward the Tang military, but Zhang Song caught the warning instantly.
Whether these regional governors could ever truly align their hearts was an open question, and pressing down on all of them was a spectacularly incompetent emperor.
Furthermore, that same emperor had just been violently betrayed by his favorite adoptive son. Given his track record of paranoia, would his first instinct not be to look at his other generals with wild, consuming suspicion?
On paper, the Tang Emperor possessed a massive advantage in raw manpower. In reality, it was a coin toss at best.
Staring at the screen, Zhang Song muttered a final, skeptical question to himself. "This Li Longji... he would not be stupid enough to start executing his own defenders while the enemy is marching on his gates, right?"