Lightscreen]
[Murong Fuyun, ruler of the Tuyuhun Kingdom, took one look at the Tang army gathering on his borders and immediately reached for the strategy that had saved his kingdom for decades. Pack up the tents, retreat into the mountains, and wait for the invaders to run out of food.
To be fair, it wasn't a bad plan.
The Sui Dynasty had fallen for it before.
More than one Chinese army had marched onto the plateau full of confidence, only to spend weeks wandering around empty grasslands on a sightseeing tour. Enjoying the landscape. Taking in the fresh mountain air. Then running out of food and being forced to retreat.
The moment they turned back, the Tuyuhun would reappear and start raiding again. And keep raiding. Until the Chinese army cried and regretted not being born with four legs.
The problem for Murong Fuyun was that this time he was facing Li Jing.
Before the campaign had properly begun, Li Jing's headquarters was already in the middle of a heated argument.
Li Daozong wanted the vanguard, he insisted they had to stay on the enemy's heels before the Tuyuhun could disappear into the highlands.
Hou Junji strongly disagreed, charging into unfamiliar mountain terrain was how armies got ambushed and destroyed.
The debate grew louder. People picked sides. Li Jing listened patiently, then settled it simply. Li Daozong got the vanguard. Hou Junji got the rear guard and flank protection. Li Jing himself would command the main army and oversee the supply lines.
Li Daozong immediately proved himself.
He launched a ten-day cavalry blitz across the harshest terrain, chasing the retreating Tuyuhun forces across mountains and valleys.
Then, not satisfied with just pursuit, he secretly sent one thousand riders through difficult mountain passes to hit the enemy from behind. The maneuver worked. Just as the Tuyuhun thought they had escaped, Tang cavalry appeared on their rear flank and threw the entire retreat into chaos.
Murong Fuyun watched his troops fall apart and realized this Tang army was different. It wasn't slowing down. It wasn't turning around.
Desperate, he split his remaining forces. Murong Fuyun personally led his most loyal followers toward the remote headwaters of the Yellow River, hoping the harsh terrain would protect him.
Meanwhile, he ordered his Prime Minister, the Prince of Tianzhu, to take a large force and begin a scorched earth campaign around Qinghai Lake.
The order was simple: burn everything.
Pastures were torched. Grazing grounds destroyed. Any source of forage that could sustain a cavalry horse was wiped out.
When reports of the burning grasslands reached the Tang camp, many officers urged caution. They argued that the army had already won. The enemy was beaten, forced to retreat, stripped of their pride. The empire's honor was restored. So why keep going? No shame in going home now.
From a practical standpoint, they weren't wrong. Go deeper, and feeding the army gets harder. Wait longer, and risks pile up. And nobody wants to be that general who won every battle but lost his army to starvation. History doesn't forgive that kind of thing.
Li Jing wasn't interested.
He hadn't marched thousands of soldiers onto the roof of the world just to teach the Tuyuhun a lesson. He hadn't endured months of preparation just to collect a participation trophy. As far as he was concerned, there was only one acceptable outcome.
The Tuyuhun Kingdom had to stop existing.
He shut down the room, overruled everyone, and ordered an all-out pursuit deeper into the wasteland. To cover more ground, he split his army again.
Li Jing took the hardest job himself. He led the main force into the scorched zone with no local supplies, determined to hunt down the main Tuyuhun army. At the same time, he ordered Hou Junji, the only officer who had actually wanted to keep going, to take a large strike force and hunt down Murong Fuyun. He put Li Daozong as Hou Junji's second-in-command.
With those orders signed, the early Tang launched one of the most relentless pursuit operations in military history.]
Deep inside Chengdu's government offices, Zhuge Liang sat quietly with his eyes fixed on the light screen, following every movement of the campaign map.
The more he watched, the more he felt the weight of the centuries separating his era from the Tang Dynasty.
Technology had changed. Weapons had changed. Even the way armies moved across a battlefield had changed.
Over the past few months, Zhao Yun had spent countless hours explaining the advantages of stirrups and the possibilities they opened for cavalry warfare.
Zhuge Liang understood the theory well enough.
But theory and reality were different things.
Nothing Zhao Yun said could compare to seeing it demonstrated.
The Battle of Talas had already left a deep impression on him. There, the screen had shown two completely different philosophies of cavalry warfare colliding head-on.
One side cataphracts covered in iron armor, when those formations charged together, they hit like a collapsing wall, smashing straight through infantry lines that would have stopped ordinary cavalry.
The other side favored mobility. Light cavalry worked alongside ranged troops, constantly maneuvering, harassing, and cutting away at their opponents until resistance collapsed under the pressure.
Even now, Zhuge Liang wasn't sure which approach was superior. Each had strengths. Each had weaknesses.
But the campaign against the Tuyuhun was showing something else entirely.
It was showing just how terrifying a well-trained cavalry force could become when mobility itself was turned into a weapon.
Watching Li Daozong drive his riders across mountains and highlands for ten consecutive days, refusing to let the enemy breathe, reminded Zhuge Liang of one man.
Huo Qubing.
The young Han general who had ridden deep into Xiongnu territory and shattered armies that thought distance alone could protect them.
"Their heavy cavalry strikes like thunder," Zhuge Liang said softly, the feather fan in his hand moving in a slow circle. "Their mounted archers fall upon the enemy like rain. But what truly frightens me is their discipline."
His gaze never left the screen.
"To maintain formation while advancing through unfamiliar terrain is difficult enough. To pursue a retreating enemy across thousands of li, through mountains and wasteland, and still possess the strength to fight when the moment comes..."
He shook his head slightly. "That is no simple achievement."
Around the room, several officers nodded in agreement.
Most generals understood how hard it was just to keep soldiers fed.
Keeping thousands of cavalry and horses moving at that pace was an entirely different challenge.
Even Zhang Fei had fallen unusually quiet.
The normally boisterous general sat with his arms folded, staring at the screen while silently piecing together the campaign in his mind.
An army composed primarily of fast-moving cavalry still felt foreign to most commanders of the Three Kingdoms era.
They had read stories about the Xiongnu and the northern tribes. They knew cavalry was important.
But reading a few lines in a history book and watching an entire campaign unfold before your eyes were completely different experiences.
For the first time, Zhang Fei could clearly see how cavalry might dominate a theater of war.
A force like this could appear where it wasn't expected, strike before defenders reacted, and disappear before slower armies could respond.
The implications were obvious.
Sooner or later, Shu would have to contest Guanzhong. It might have to fight across the plains of the north. If the opportunity came, they might even push into Yuzhou itself.
When that day arrived, cavalry would no longer be a supporting arm.
It would be one of the foundations of warfare.
Zhang Fei scratched his beard and clicked his tongue.
"No wonder the future armies ride everywhere," he muttered.
Nobody laughed.
Because everyone in the room was thinking the same thing.
This broadcast wasn't just entertainment.
It was a survival manual.
[Lightscreen]
[With the Tuyuhun executing a perfect scorched earth strategy, the Tang army quickly faced a starvation crisis.
Li Jing's original plan was simple. The local Dangxiang tribes lived in the valleys, so he'd buy grain from them. During Duan Zhixuan's failed expedition, the Dangxiang had been loyal allies. Everything was fine.
But this was the early Tang. An era where wild cards love to ruin perfectly good plans. And the man who threw a wrench into the gears was someone Li Jing knew well.
The local Dangxiang chieftain, Tuoba Chici, lived near Qinghai Lake. So Li Jing paid him a visit. Not with an army. With gifts. Piles of them. Imperial treasures. Sweet promises. The whole charm offensive package.
Chici was impressed. Who wouldn't be? One day you're herding yaks, the next day the Tang Empire is showering you with silk and gold. He pledged loyalty on the spot. Agreed to be the army's guide. Promised to keep the grain coming.
For a moment, everything was perfect.
Enter Prince Li Daoyan. Another one of Li Shimin's cousins. The kind of relative who makes you wonder if the Emperor ever considered disowning half his family tree.
He was marching his army near Dangxiang territory when he spotted the tribal villages. Undefended. Peaceful. Full of livestock.
And apparently, he thought to himself, Hey. Free loot.
Never mind that these people were allies. What even is an ally, anyway? Some abstract concept that didn't matter to him.
Never mind that the entire campaign depended on their goodwill. The grain. The guides. The local knowledge. All of it.
None of that mattered. Because he was Prince Li Daoyan. Cousin of the Emperor. Surely he was more important than some tribal chief and his sheep.
Without consulting anyone, this ultimate nepotism baby launched an unprovoked attack on his own empire's brand new friends.
And here's the thing. If you're going to betray an ally, at least be good at it.
Li Daoyan was not good at it.
He was spectacularly terrible.
He led ten thousand veteran soldiers into a surprise attack against an unprepared target. No fortifications. No resistance. Just villages full of surprised herders.
The result? A few thousand cows and sheep. That's it. No strategic victory. No crushing blow. Just some livestock and a whole lot of bad karma.
But actions have consequences. The Dangxiang didn't take kindly to being robbed by the very people who had just promised to be their friends.
They counterattacked. Hard.
The enraged tribesmen slaughtered thousands of elite Tang soldiers. And Li Daoyan? He did what incompetent relatives always do. He panicked. Abandoned the campaign. And ran.
The history books don't record Li Jing's reaction. But we can imagine.
Maybe he kicked a chair. Maybe he kicked a table. Maybe he muttered, "Damn you, Li Daoyan." Or something stronger.
Meanwhile, back in Chang'an, Tang Jian probably laughed so hard he pulled a tooth. The man who had been used as bait was now watching someone else make an even bigger mess. Poetic justice.
Suddenly, Li Jing was stuck in freezing mountains. No guides. No food. A local population that now wanted his head.
He decided he was done playing nice.
No more diplomacy. No more gifts. No more trusting the Emperor's incompetent cousins.
He activated his absolute god mode.
Starting in late April, the old general launched a two-week blitz that makes military historians scratch their heads.
First, his subordinate Xue Gu'er caught the enemy at Mount Mantou and smashed their front lines.
Next, Li Jing personally led his division into the valley of Niuxindui. He crushed the main regional defense force like they were made of paper.
Without stopping to rest, he pivoted toward the headwaters of the Chishui River and secured another route.
At the same time, General Li Daliang cornered a splinter faction at Mount Shuhun. Textbook encirclement. No survivors.
To close out the fourteen days of terror, General Zhishi Sili tracked down the remaining mobile units at Juruichuan. He launched a brutal cavalry charge that broke the enemy's will to fight.
Five major battles. Five wins. All in two weeks.
The Prince of Tianzhu's elite guard was destroyed. Wiped out. Gone.
And more importantly? The entire Tuyuhun supply train officially became Li Jing's personal grocery store. The army that had been worrying about starvation was now eating the enemy's food.
Now, here's what's really baffling.
How did Li Jing navigate the high-altitude Qinghai region like he'd lived there his whole life? He found every hidden enemy camp. Destroyed them with pinpoint accuracy.
For context, his predecessor Duan Zhixuan had spent a month wandering around the same lake. Like a confused tourist. Saw absolutely nothing. Went home empty-handed.
Li Jing showed up and did in two weeks what Duan couldn't do in a month. While freezing. While hungry. While dealing with a traitorous cousin who ruined his supply line.
That's the difference between a regular general and a country-crushing one.
The Prince of Tianzhu finally realized what he was dealing with. This wasn't a normal army. This wasn't a normal general. This was a force of nature.
So he gathered every surviving warrior he had left. One massive trap in the mountain passes. His last shot.
The Tang forces marched straight into the ambush.
They didn't panic. They didn't even slow down.
The vanguard commanders, the legendary brothers Xue Wanjun and Xue Wanche, found themselves outnumbered. Way outnumbered. But they didn't retreat. They held their ground. Traded blows like maniacs. Like men who had forgotten how to be afraid.
The battle hung in the balance. Neither side could break the other.
Then another Tang general arrived on a ridge.
His name was Qibi Heli. He had five hundred riders.
Most generals, faced with thousands of enemy cavalry, would take a moment. Think. Plan. Maybe wait for reinforcements.
Qibi Heli apparently thought, "Five hundred is enough."
He launched an insane downhill charge straight into the enemy formation. Five hundred against thousands.
It worked.
He shattered their line. Turned the ambush into a massacre.
With that, organized Tuyuhun resistance around Qinghai Lake ceased to exist. Wiped out. Finished.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the map, General Hou Junji was turning the campaign into an extreme endurance race.
Murong Fuyun was running for his life. And Hou Junji? He was right on his heels. Refusing to let go.
They raced across Mount Ku. Scaled the frozen peaks of the Ela range. Braved the toxic waters of Kuhai. Pushed all the way to Lake Eling at the source of the Yellow River.
Two thousand li of hostile terrain. Mountains. Rivers. Frozen wasteland.
And Hou Junji kept coming.
Murong Fuyun finally realized the Tang army wasn't going to stop. Ever.
So he changed course. Hard. Toward the northern deserts. Maybe the sand would save him. Maybe the heat would slow them down. Maybe, just maybe, they'd give up.
Hou Junji tracked him perfectly. Every turn. Every desperate dash. Eventually, he met up with Li Jing's main force at Dafeichuan.
Then he filed his report.
"Your Majesty," he basically said, "this guy has supernatural running abilities. I'm not joking. He never stops. Also, my men are too exhausted to take another step. Please send help. Or food. Or both."
Li Jing read the report. Nodded. Then ordered Hou's exhausted divisions to rest.
Then he tapped in his fresh runners.
Qibi Heli and Xue Wanjun. The ones who hadn't been chasing Fuyun across two thousand li of hell. The ones with energy left.
"Go," Li Jing said. "Finish it."
The chase got even more absurd.
The Tang units tracked Murong Fuyun through the Tarim Basin. Pushed deep into what is now Xinjiang. They rode for forty days straight. No rest. No pause. Just riding.
Fifteen hundred kilometers of wasteland. Desert. Dust. Nothing.
And they kept going.
Murong Fuyun was completely broken. The sheer persistence of his pursuers had destroyed him.
He abandoned his own people. Left them behind. Fled into the Taklamakan Desert with just a handful of loyalists.
The Tang vanguard hit his abandoned base camp near the Tarim River. They killed thousands. Captured Murong Fuyun's entire royal family. Seized over two hundred thousand animals.
The kingdom's wealth. The kingdom's people. The kingdom's future. All gone.
Murong Fuyun entered the shifting sands of the Taklamakan with barely one thousand followers. No food. No water. No destination. Just sand and despair.
His own bodyguards eventually realized there was no future left. No kingdom to return to. No point in following a dead man walking.
One night, they staged a coup. Cut off his head. Walked out of the desert. Surrendered to the nearest Tang scouts.
Four months of continuous operations. Three thousand kilometers of combat maneuvers across mountains, plains, and deserts.
The Tuyuhun Kingdom was officially dead.
Murong Fuyun's head arrived in Chang'an as a souvenir. His family was paraded through the streets. His livestock fed the Tang army.
And Li Jing? He went back to his retirement. Until the next crisis.
Because in the early Tang, that's how it worked. You erase a kingdom, you go home, you rest for a bit, and then someone else causes trouble.]
If you look at the map carefully," Li Ji said, studying the glowing borders on the screen, "there are only a handful of powers that have truly challenged the Tang. Goguryeo in the east, the Turks in the north, the Tuyuhun in the west, and Tibet beyond the plateau."
He glanced toward Li Jing.
"Yaoshi personally helped destroy two of them."
Admiration. And a faint trace of envy.
The gap between them was twenty years. Yet every campaign on the screen felt like a lesson. Against Xiao Xian, navy and psychological warfare. Against the Turks, massive cavalry coordination. Against the Tuyuhun, brutal pursuit and logistics.
Three different enemies. Three different solutions. All flawless.
Li Ji sat up straighter. If his memory was right, Li Jing would be promoted to Duke of Wei after this campaign. Which meant the broadcasts would eventually move on to other Tang commanders.
Including himself.
He stroked his beard and quietly wondered which unfortunate kingdom would be sacrificed for his own legend.
Across the room, Li Shimin burst into laughter.
"Good! Excellent! That's how soldiers of the Great Tang should fight!"
He had led cavalry charges himself. He knew what it took to push an army across thousands of miles of wasteland. Watching his troops do it filled him with pride.
Then he remembered certain members of the imperial family.
His smile vanished.
"Li Daozong is brave enough," he grumbled. "Tell him to charge and he'll be halfway across the battlefield before anyone else gets on a horse."
Several ministers nodded. That sounded accurate.
"But the moment a campaign requires patience or planning, his brain starts wandering."
Li Daozong, who was very much present, looked offended.
"Your Majesty, that's a slanderous accusation."
Li Shimin pointed at the screen. "Then explain why every time I read a campaign report involving you, the words 'requested permission to attack immediately' appear somewhere on the first page."
Li Daozong opened his mouth. Then closed it.
The room erupted with laughter.
Li Shimin wasn't finished.
"As for Li Daoyan..."
A dangerous calm settled over the hall. Li Shimin's eyes narrowed.
"If I had been personally commanding that expedition, I would have tied that idiot to a post and executed him before sunset."
No one doubted he meant it. The Emperor hated military incompetence. He hated disobedience even more. And Li Daoyan had managed to combine both.
Nearby, Su Lie watched the Emperor's reaction and silently ran through the possibilities in his head.
Okay, let's think, he thought. Is His Majesty angry because Li Daoyan sabotaged the whole campaign?
He paused.
Or is he angry because his cousin managed to lose a surprise attack against people who weren't even fighting back?
He considered it for a moment. He decided to keep his mouth shut and his head attached to his neck.
After a moment, Li Shimin waved the topic away.
"Forget him."
His gaze returned to the screen.
"It's a pity, though. The earlier broadcasts hardly mentioned Hou Junji. Now that he's finally appearing, we're only seeing fragments."
The statement sounded casual, but everyone understood. Li Shimin cared deeply about the men who had built the empire alongside him. If history remembered them, he wanted it remembered properly.
Li Jing offered an awkward smile at the screen's use of "god mode."
God mode, he thought. If only they knew.
According to the screen, his future self would pull off five victories in fourteen days. But the truth the narrator conveniently skipped? Sheer desperation.
No food. Starving men. A ruined supply line thanks to Li Daoyan. The only option left was to launch hyper-aggressive assaults and seize enemy grain before they could burn it.
Every victory on that screen wasn't some divine strategy. They were gambles. Desperate throws of the dice to keep his men from starving to death in the snow.
Nothing more.
He glanced around the room. Everyone was nodding, impressed.
They didn't know
...But history, he supposed, preferred legends. And honestly, who was he to argue with what future descendants wanted to believe?
Du Ruhui looked at the map, already thinking ahead.
"With the Tuyuhun gone," he said, nodding slowly, "the next target should be Gaochang. Take that, and we can set up the Protectorate General to Pacify the West. That locks down the entire Hexi Corridor for the Tang and gives us a launching pad into the Western Regions."
He checked the strategic timeline in his head. Felt satisfied.
Everything was falling into place.
The only question mark left on the map was Goguryeo. That frozen headache in the northeast. The future screen had hinted that the Emperor's personal expedition wouldn't go so well. Mixed results, they said.
Du Ruhui silently wondered which general would eventually claim the glory of conquering that frozen peninsula.
Not me, obviously, he thought. I do paperwork.
"A campaign defined by a three-thousand-kilometer chase," General Qin Qiong murmured, coughing slightly as he leaned against his chair. "What a time to be a soldier."
Yuchi Jingde turned to look at his old friend. He heard the quiet sadness beneath the words.
They had been the Emperor's shock weapons. The vanguard that carved out the dynasty. Back in the day, it was the two of them charging into the thick of it. No fear. No hesitation.
Now, at the empire's greatest moment, his best friend was confined to a chair. Watching from the sidelines. Missing all the action.
Yuchi Jingde's jaw tightened. But he said nothing.
Then Sun Simiao's calm voice cut through the heavy atmosphere.
"If General Qin follows his medical regimen and focuses on recovering," the old doctor said, "it's not impossible for him to stand on a command platform again."
Qin Qiong's eyes lit up. The kind of light that hadn't been there in years.
"Are you serious, Master Sun?"
Sun Simiao looked the scarred veteran up and down. Not with pity. With professional assessment.
"A three-thousand-kilometer cavalry sprint through a blizzard?" He shook his head. "Out of the question for your lungs. You'd die before you reached the first mountain."
Qin Qiong's face fell slightly.
"But standing in a rear command tent? Directing grand formations from a safe distance?" Sun Simiao nodded. "That's within reach. Provided you actually follow my instructions and stop pretending you know better than me."
A genuine smile broke across Qin Qiong's weathered face. He bowed his head.
"That's more than enough for me."
Yuchi Jingde clapped him on the shoulder. Not too hard. Just enough.
"Good," the big man said. "Because I'm not doing all the work by myself."
Qin Qiong laughed. Then coughed. Then laughed again.
Worth it.