[Lightscreen]
[After Yanqi was erased from the map, the geopolitical situation around the Tang started moving fast in every direction at once.
By 644, the eighteenth year of Zhenguan, multiple crises were unfolding simultaneously.
The first domino fell on the Korean Peninsula.
At the center of the crisis stood Yeon Gaesomun, one of the most powerful and controversial figures in Goguryeo's history.
He was not some obscure general who rose from nothing. Yeon came from one of the kingdom's most influential aristocratic families. His father had occupied a senior government position, and Yeon inherited both status and authority. For many men, that would have been enough.
For Yeon Gaesomun, it was merely a starting point.
In 642, he decided that if power could not be granted to him completely, he would simply take the rest himself.
To accomplish this, he organized a grand banquet in Pyongyang. The kingdom's leading nobles and senior officials received invitations. The food was lavish, the wine flowed freely, and the atmosphere was relaxed. Everything appeared perfectly normal.
Until it wasn't.
At a prearranged signal, Yeon Gaesomun's soldiers emerged and massacred the assembled guests. The coup unfolded so abruptly that many of the kingdom's most powerful men never even had an opportunity to react. They arrived expecting a political gathering. They received an execution.
If history teaches us anything, it is that ambitious men have countless ways to remove political opponents. Some choose military confrontation. Others rely on court intrigue, fabricated accusations, or carefully arranged accidents. Yeon Gaesomun looked at all those options and concluded that a banquet massacre was the most efficient solution.
It certainly left an impression.
With the aristocratic opposition eliminated, he proceeded directly to the palace, where King Yeongnyu met a similarly unfortunate end. The throne was then handed to the king's nephew, Bojang.
Officially, Bojang became the twenty-eighth king of Goguryeo. In practice, he became whatever Yeon Gaesomun needed him to be. His responsibilities largely consisted of sitting on the throne, looking appropriately royal, and agreeing with government decisions that had already been made for him.
It was not an especially prestigious arrangement. On the other hand, it was considerably healthier than being the king's predecessor.
As for Yeon Gaesomun's motives, they were not particularly mysterious. He belonged to the hardline faction within Goguryeo and believed the kingdom should adopt a far more aggressive stance toward the Tang Dynasty. King Yeongnyu favored caution. Yeon Gaesomun favored confrontation.
When disagreements emerged between the two men, Yeon chose to resolve the debate by eliminating everyone on the opposing side. It was difficult to argue with the outcome. Mostly because the opposition was dead.
While Goguryeo was busy reorganizing its government through extraordinarily violent means, another kingdom was watching events with great interest.
That kingdom was Baekje.
One of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, Baekje was ruled at the time by King Uija, a monarch who displayed considerably more enthusiasm for military expansion than diplomatic restraint.
Uija ascended the throne in 641. The following year, he launched a major offensive against Silla. The campaign was astonishingly successful. Baekje captured approximately forty fortresses in a single offensive, dramatically altering the balance of power on the peninsula.
At that scale, it was no longer a border conflict. It was territorial acquisition conducted at high speed.
The pressure on Silla intensified further when Baekje dispatched ten thousand troops against Daeya Fortress. The fortress fell. Among the casualties were the daughter and son-in-law of a Silla nobleman named Kim Chun-chu.
This detail would prove important.
Kim Chun-chu already had compelling reasons to care about his kingdom's survival. After Daeya Fortress, he acquired deeply personal reasons as well. Baekje had not merely threatened Silla. It had killed members of his family.
Seeking a solution, Kim Chun-chu first traveled to Goguryeo. He met Yeon Gaesomun and requested assistance against Baekje.
The response was entirely predictable. Yeon Gaesomun expressed a willingness to help, but only under one condition. Silla would have to return the Han River Valley.
From Goguryeo's perspective, this was a reasonable demand. From Silla's perspective, it was absurd. The Han River Valley was among the kingdom's most valuable territories. Surrendering it in exchange for military assistance would have solved one problem by creating a much larger one.
Kim Chun-chu immediately recognized that the proposal was impossible. The negotiations ended there.
Having failed to secure support from Goguryeo, he turned to the only major power left.
The Tang Dynasty.
Kim Chun-chu traveled to Chang'an and made every effort to demonstrate goodwill. He adopted Tang court customs, wore Tang-style clothing, and presented himself as a loyal partner seeking assistance rather than merely a desperate petitioner.
And this time, it worked.
Li Shimin tried the diplomatic route first. He dispatched envoys to cool things down. Goguryeo shut the door in their faces. That was the last straw. The Tang emperor concluded that conversation was not going to be productive. He called a full mobilization and personally led the army east.
The campaign launched in Zhenguan year nineteen. From the frozen mud of February through the bitter winds of September, the Tang military machine worked its way across the Liaodong Peninsula. The numbers were stark. Tang casualties: roughly two thousand. Enemy troops captured: seventy thousand. Fortified cities taken: more than ten. Supply stockpiles seized: substantial. And yet Goguryeo did not break. The kingdom was still standing when autumn ended and the army had to withdraw.
While that was happening, the frozen north decided this was a good time to try something. The Xueyantuo Khaganate looked at the Tang emperor personally marching hundreds of thousands of troops into the east and concluded that Chang'an must be completely preoccupied. They launched a raid on Xiaozhou.
The result was mortifying for everyone involved on the Xueyantuo side. The local Tang border garrisons turned them away without breaking a sweat. The Xueyantuo Khan died in the messy aftermath. The khaganate immediately collapsed into internal power struggles.
When Li Shimin returned from the Liaodong front and reviewed the intelligence on the northern border incident, he made a decision. Xueyantuo had served whatever geopolitical purpose it was ever going to serve. He issued the decree.
The Tang legions did not bother going home first. They simply rotated their march columns west and drove straight into Xueyantuo. The nomadic army shattered on contact and fled deep into the northern Gobi. As long as survivors existed, the nation technically still existed. The Tang kept moving.
In the sixth month of Zhenguan year twenty, Li Ji rode out of the northern desert with exactly two hundred cavalry. Two hundred men. Against the remnants of a khaganate.
He leveraged his reputation to recruit thousands of warriors from the Chile Nine Clans on the spot. Then he walked up to the surviving Xueyantuo leadership and delivered the simplest possible message.
Surrender or die.
Faced with Li Ji, the two remaining chieftains made different choices. One knelt. The other ran. The one who ran made Li Ji genuinely angry. He unleashed the tribal cavalry he had just recruited and hunted the man across the steppe.
By July the accounting was done. Five thousand heads. Thirty thousand prisoners. The Xueyantuo Khaganate was no longer a going concern.
While the Second Phoenix was busy setting fire to the eastern and northern borders, the western frontier decided it also had opinions. The Western Turks situation had developed in an interesting direction.
The good news: the khan Li Shimin had backed was extremely good at warfare. The bad news: same reason. He had eliminated every rival, ended a twenty-year internal civil war, and unified the Western Turks into a single coherent superpower.
The child had grown up. He no longer felt the need to call Chang'an dad.
That said, watching the Tang casually delete neighboring nations from existence had made the newly unified Supreme Khan understandably nervous. He decided the diplomatic path was safer. He sent envoys to Chang'an, politely requesting a marriage alliance. A Tang princess, to legitimize his rule and signal peace.
Trading a princess for border security was standard ancient geopolitics. But Li Shimin had a particular creative flair when it came to negotiations.
He agreed to the marriage. He just had one small request for a bride price in return. He wanted Kucha, Khotan, Kashgar, Zhujubo, and the Congling Mountains.
The Supreme Khan of the Western Turks stared at that list.
The Tang was asking for roughly half of Central Asia in exchange for one woman. The Khan's response to this was not diplomatic.
Talks collapsed entirely. ]
Inside Ganlu Hall, Hou Junji sat motionless in his chair, watching the light screen with the expression of a man watching someone else enjoy a feast he had personally paid for.
What an era to be alive in.
The Tang legions were grinding their way through Goguryeo. Kingdoms were vanishing from the northern steppe. The political map of the Western Regions was being redrawn almost in real time. For any ambitious soldier, it was the sort of age that transformed capable generals into legends.
None of it belonged to him anymore.
Based on everything the light screen had revealed, Hou Junji had already reached the limit of his historical legacy. Gaochang was apparently the highest point of his career, and even that achievement came with an asterisk. According to the future, he had managed to anger the Emperor by looting the treasury and handling Gaochang's aristocracy according to his own judgment rather than imperial instructions.
The realization lingered unpleasantly.
A short distance away, Li Ji was radiating the quiet satisfaction of a man whose career was unfolding exactly as planned. He had marched alongside the Emperor against Goguryeo. He had dismantled the Xueyantuo Khaganate starting with only two hundred cavalrymen. He was not Li Jing, who occupied a category so lofty that comparison was largely meaningless, but the reputation he was building had begun speaking for itself in a very persuasive voice.
Li Ji casually glanced toward Su Dingfang. The younger general was staring at the light screen with undisguised envy. For some reason, Li Ji found this immensely entertaining.
"Maogong possesses the bearing of a true supreme commander," Li Jing remarked. There was no effort in his praise, only genuine admiration. "To destroy the remnants of an entire khaganate starting with two hundred cavalry is an accomplishment that would be difficult to match anywhere in the historical record."
Li Ji immediately waved the compliment away with the polished modesty of a man who had spent years perfecting the technique.
"Without the Duke of Dai crushing Illig Qaghan and breaking the confidence of the northern tribes beforehand, the warriors of the Chile clans would never have followed me so readily," he replied. "And more importantly, the true weapon was His Majesty's prestige. This victory belongs to the authority of the Great Tang, not to me."
As he spoke, he conveniently found another reason to glance in Su Dingfang's direction.
Su Dingfang responded with admirable self-control.
"The General's achievements will be remembered for generations," he said evenly. "You have become the standard by which our generation measures itself."
His tone was flawless. His eyes suggested he would very much like to borrow several decades of Li Ji's military achievements.
At the front of the hall, Li Shimin rubbed his temples. He looked like a man trying to manage several fires at once while discovering that more people were arriving with torches.
"Was this Xueyantuo Khan truly so lacking in self-preservation?" he asked aloud. "Yi Nan personally watched me dismantle the Eastern Turks. He witnessed the entire process. How did he convince himself that raiding Tang territory was a good idea?"
"The root of the issue likely lies in how we handled the surrendered Turkic tribes," Zhangsun Wuji replied. His timing was impeccable. As a veteran court politician, he recognized an opening when he saw one and had no intention of wasting it.
"When Your Majesty ordered the resettlement of the surrendered Turkic populations onto their former lands, Xueyantuo was effectively forced to return territory to its old enemies. Even if their leaders accepted the arrangement publicly, they would have carried that resentment with them for years."
Li Shimin considered the explanation and slowly nodded. The logic was difficult to dispute. Even if the Xueyantuo leadership had outwardly complied, the humiliation itself had become a ticking clock.
"An embarrassment," he muttered quietly.
For perhaps the first time, he had reached exactly the same conclusion the light screen seemed determined to force upon him. The great experiment of nomadic resettlement had not produced the results he envisioned.
Fortunately, the problem was now largely academic. Illig Qaghan was gone. Xueyantuo was gone. The remaining tribes were fragmented, scattered, and lacking any leader capable of uniting them into a meaningful threat.
With the northern frontier finally settling down, Li Shimin shifted his attention back toward the west. A strange expression appeared on his face.
"I genuinely cannot understand," he said in the tone of a man who understood the answer perfectly well, "why this Supreme Khan of the Western Turks seems so reluctant to become my son-in-law."
Laughter immediately spread through the hall. Any remaining diplomatic dignity died on the spot.
"If the Supreme Khan had accepted those conditions, Your Majesty, he never would have survived long enough to attend the wedding," Du Ruhui replied with a helpless shake of his head. "You demanded the territory of five kingdoms as a bride price. That is effectively half his empire. The moment those figures reached his subordinate leaders, they would have mounted his head on a spear before the bridal procession even departed."
Fang Xuanling picked up the conversation without missing a beat. "I believe you are being optimistic. The Khan would likely have been overthrown before the marriage carriage reached the first frontier checkpoint."
The ministers chuckled. Everyone present understood the realities of steppe politics. A nomadic ruler remained supreme khan only as long as he continued delivering victories, wealth, and territory to the tribes supporting him. The moment he attempted to trade away half those gains for a marriage alliance with a foreign empire, rebellion would arrive faster than the wedding invitations.
"Your Majesty made no mistake," Qin Shubao said calmly. Unlike the others, the veteran general approached the discussion from the perspective of a career soldier. "Written agreements are decorations when dealing with this sort of opponent. If you want lasting peace, you must hit them hard enough that they lose the ability to create future problems."
Li Shimin nodded immediately. He found Qin Shubao's philosophy of international relations refreshingly straightforward.
Yet beneath his amusement lingered a darker thought. The light screen had placed these events in the twentieth year of Zhenguan. That number carried implications. No matter how healthy he currently felt, time was moving forward.
Would he actually live long enough to secure the Western Regions permanently under Tang rule?
[Lightscreen]
[In the final months of Zhenguan Year Twenty-One, Li Shimin issued yet another decree that promised to rearrange the political map of the Western Regions.
This time, the target was Kucha, the powerful oasis kingdom sitting directly west of the recently conquered Yanqi.
Nobody familiar with the situation misunderstood what this meant. Kucha was the target. The Western Turkic Khaganate was the audience. The Tang court intended to make a statement, and it planned to deliver that statement with an army.
The list of commanders alone was enough to make neighboring rulers nervous. Ashina She'er was appointed Supreme Commander of the Kunqiu Marching Army. Qibi Heli served as his deputy. Guo Xiaoke took command of the vanguard. Tens of thousands of cavalry from the Tiele, Turkic, and Tuyuhun tribes were attached to the expedition.
In total, roughly one hundred thousand men were pointed directly at Kucha.
The scale of the mobilization sent shockwaves across the western deserts.
The Supreme Khan of the Western Turks immediately sensed danger. If Kucha fell, everyone would understand what that meant. In anticipation of the coming conflict, he began purging potential rivals and suspected traitors within his own ranks.
One of the men caught in that storm was Ashina Helu, a prominent commander who had once enjoyed the confidence of the previous Khan. Helu quickly realized that surviving a purge was often more difficult than surviving a battlefield.
Rather than wait for the execution order to arrive, he made a different calculation. He defected. Taking his followers with him, he rode directly to the advancing Tang army and offered his services. More importantly, he offered directions.
For the sake of everyone's sanity, historians often refer to him as Little Lu.
With Little Lu guiding the expedition through the deserts and oasis routes of the Western Regions, the Tang advance accelerated dramatically. The army swept through territories that the Western Turks had attempted to reclaim after the fall of Yanqi and continued marching toward Kucha without slowing down.
The King of Kucha remained confident. On paper, his position looked solid. The Western Turks supported him. His kingdom possessed substantial military resources. And despite all the terrifying stories surrounding Tang campaigns, stories did not win wars. Armies did.
So the king mobilized roughly fifty thousand soldiers and prepared to discover whether the reputation of the Great Tang was truly deserved.
The Tang commanders examined the opposing army and immediately decided to cheat.
Not literally. Just professionally.
Vanguard Commander Han Wei advanced with a force of roughly one thousand men and initiated a brief engagement. After testing the enemy lines, he abruptly ordered a retreat. The withdrawal looked disastrous. It was supposed to. The soldiers scattered convincingly. Formation discipline appeared to collapse. The entire maneuver resembled a force breaking under pressure and fleeing for its life.
The King of Kucha watched the performance and reached a dangerous conclusion. Perhaps the legends surrounding the Tang military had been exaggerated. Perhaps the empire's terrifying reputation was mostly excellent marketing.
Convinced that victory was within reach, he ordered a full pursuit.
Unfortunately for him, General Cao Jishu had already prepared the next stage of the conversation.
The Kucha army charged directly into a carefully arranged ambush. The trap snapped shut. Tang cavalry struck from multiple directions, shattering the advancing formations and turning the pursuit into a rout. The fifty-thousand-man army disintegrated under the assault, and the King of Kucha abandoned the battlefield in favor of a much faster method of travel.
Running.
The Tang vanguard pursued relentlessly. The chase continued until the king finally locked himself behind the walls of Bahuan, known to modern audiences as Aksu, a city now more famous for producing excellent apples than for resisting imperial invasions.
To his credit, the King of Kucha fought stubbornly. He held out against Tang siege operations for an entire month. Given the circumstances, that was a genuinely respectable achievement.
Eventually, however, the walls fell. Tang troops stormed the city, capturing most of the royal family and a substantial portion of the kingdom's aristocracy.
The conquest appeared complete.
It was not.
One particularly important figure escaped the collapse. The Prime Minister of Kucha.
Unlike his king, the Prime Minister had no intention of surrendering. He rode west at full speed until he reached the camps of the Western Turks. There, he secured ten thousand elite cavalry and returned with a plan that was considerably more dangerous than a conventional counterattack.
Rather than confront the Tang army directly, he used local knowledge to bypass patrol routes and maneuver around the main battlefield. His target was the recently occupied Kucha capital.
The attack came at night. Using his authority and influence, he rallied local supporters inside the city while the Turkic cavalry struck from outside. Before the Tang garrison could fully react, a large-scale urban uprising erupted within the walls.
Nighttime street fighting is among the most chaotic forms of warfare imaginable. Visibility disappears. Command structures break down. Confusion spreads faster than orders. During the fighting, the veteran Tang commander Guo Xiaoke became separated from his troops and was killed.
For a brief moment, the defenders believed fortune had turned in their favor.
The celebration did not last long.
Upon receiving news of the uprising, Cao Jishu and Han Wei immediately marched back toward the capital and threw their forces directly into the battle. The fighting continued throughout the night. By dawn, the outcome was clear. The rebellion had been crushed. The Western Turkic reinforcements had been shattered. The city remained firmly in Tang hands.
The Prime Minister of Kucha refused to accept reality. Gathering the surviving cavalry, he attempted one final offensive. Han Wei met the attack in open terrain and dismantled it with methodical efficiency.
At that point, the citizens of Kucha conducted their own assessment of the strategic situation. The Tang kept winning. Everyone else kept losing.
Faced with this pattern, they reached a practical conclusion. The Prime Minister was tied up and delivered directly to the Tang commanders as a gesture of cooperation.
Kucha ceased to exist as an independent kingdom.
The Tang, however, had not yet finished expanding.
A logistics officer named Xue Wanbei gathered fifty cavalrymen and continued westward beyond the ruins of Kucha. Eventually, he arrived at the court of Khotan.
Walking into a foreign royal court with only fifty men might seem reckless. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have been. The problem was that everyone had just watched the Tang erase multiple kingdoms from existence.
Xue Wanbei's timing could not have been better.
The King of Khotan listened carefully, examined the regional situation, and immediately concluded that resistance was an unnecessary hobby. He surrendered without a fight. Soon afterward, he personally traveled to Chang'an to offer tribute, and Khotan entered the Tang sphere without a single battle.
After securing Khotan, the Tang court established permanent military garrisons at Yanqi, Kucha, Khotan, and Kashgar. Together, these installations became known as the Four Garrisons of Anxi.
Kashgar took one look at the situation surrounding it and arrived at a similarly practical conclusion. Independence was abandoned without requiring further persuasion.
The historical significance of these developments cannot be overstated. After nearly four centuries of fragmentation and shifting control, the Western Regions once again fell under Chinese imperial authority.
Most remarkably of all, this achievement occurred during Li Shimin's own lifetime.
The prestige of the Tang military now extended deeper into Central Asia than even the Han Dynasty had managed at its height. For the first time in centuries, the authority of Chang'an in the Western Regions was not merely a distant claim on a map. It was immediate. It was tangible. And everyone could see it. ]
Li Shimin was on his feet before he had consciously decided to stand. His chest was doing something he had not felt in a while.
"Within my lifetime!" he exclaimed, slapping the armrest of his throne. "Did you all hear that? Within my lifetime!"
He turned toward his ministers, his eyes blazing with an energy that made several of them instinctively sit up straighter.
"Fang Xuanling! Du Ruhui! Did you hear what the screen just said? The Western Regions will be back under Han authority. Under OUR authority. And it will happen while I am still alive!"
He strode down from the throne, unable to remain seated. His robes swept behind him as he moved through the hall, pointing at one minister after another.
"Look at that map! Look at how far we will push! Further than Emperor Wu. Further than anyone. And we will do it without bleeding the treasury dry. We will do it without starving our farmers. We will do it with smart campaigns, with careful planning, with the best commanders under heaven!"
He stopped in front of Fang Xuanling.
"Tell me, Prime Minister. When we first started this campaign, did you ever imagine we would reach this far?"
Fang Xuanling rose from his seat and bowed deeply, a smile spreading across his face despite his best efforts to remain composed.
"Your Majesty, when you first spoke of securing the Western Regions, I confess I had my doubts. The distance alone seemed insurmountable. The logistics, the supply lines, the endless deserts..." He shook his head. "But the screen has shown us what is possible. The Tang will stand where no Han emperor has ever stood."
"And look at how we will do it!" Li Shimin continued, turning toward Du Ruhui. "Not with endless conscription. Not with brutal taxation. We will use strategy. We will use patience. We will use the right people at the right time."
He laughed, a full, unrestrained laugh that echoed through the hall.
"Emperor Wu would be jealous. I know I would have been, if I were in his position."
Du Ruhui nodded, his eyes bright with shared pride.
"Your Majesty, the Han Empire spent generations trying to accomplish what we will achieve in less than two decades. The credit belongs entirely to Your Majesty's vision. Without that vision, none of this would have been possible."
"Bah!" Li Shimin waved his hand, still grinning. "It was not just my vision. It will be Li Jing's strategy. It will be Li Ji's campaigns. It will be Guo Xiaoke's bravery. It will be Ashina She'er's defection. It will be every commander who marches through that desert, every soldier who holds a sword, every logistical officer who makes sure they have supplies."
He spread his arms wide.
"We will do this together! All of us! And then the whole world will know it!"
He turned toward Li Jing, who was stroking his beard with the calm satisfaction of a man who had seen the future and knew his place in it.
"Old General, you have been quiet. Say something! Gloat a little! You have earned it!"
Li Jing smiled slowly, the kind of smile that comes from a lifetime of achievements and the wisdom to know when to enjoy them.
"Your Majesty, I have spent my entire career watching campaigns succeed and fail. I have seen armies march into the desert and never return. I have seen empires crumble because they overreached." He paused, letting the words settle. "Today, I am watching the screen show me what the Tang will become. And I am proud to have played even a small part in building that future."
"A small part?" Li Shimin laughed. "You destroyed the Eastern Turks! You broke the back of every nomadic threat on our northern border! Without you, we would still be fighting Illig Qaghan instead of celebrating!"
He turned and pointed at Li Ji.
"And you! Two hundred cavalry! You will start with two hundred cavalry and destroy an entire khaganate! Tell me, Maogong, when you heard that, did you ever imagine that would be the result?"
Li Ji straightened, allowing himself a rare moment of undisguised pride.
"Your Majesty, when I heard it, I knew I would find a way. I did not know exactly how. But I knew I would not return until the job was done." He paused, then added with a slight grin, "And I must admit, the look on Su Dingfang's face when he hears about it will be almost as satisfying as the victory itself."
The hall erupted in laughter. Su Dingfang, caught off guard, could only shake his head and offer a wry smile.
"Lord Li Ji is generous with his praise," Su Dingfang said dryly. "One day, I will earn the right to have a look of my own."
"Patience, young general," Li Ji replied, his tone warm but his eyes gleaming. "There will be plenty of kingdoms left for you to conquer once us old men are done."
Li Shimin clapped his hands together, his grin impossible to suppress.
"Did you hear that, everyone? 'Plenty of kingdoms left'! That is the spirit of the Tang! We are not finished! We are never finished! As long as there is land beyond our borders, as long as there are people who have not yet submitted, we will keep moving forward!"
He returned to his throne, but he did not sit down. He stood beside it, one hand resting on the armrest, his gaze sweeping across the assembled ministers.
"Emperor Wu of Han expanded the empire. He conquered the Xiongnu. He pushed into the Western Regions. And he was remembered for it for a thousand years."
His voice dropped slightly, but the intensity remained.
"We will do what he did. We will do it faster. We will do it better. And we will do it without breaking the backs of our own people."
He looked at each face in turn.
"This is our moment. This is what we will be remembered for. Not just as emperors and generals and ministers, but as the generation that will bring the Western Regions back under Chinese rule. The generation that will push further than anyone before us."
The hall was silent for a moment.
Then Li Shimin smiled.
"Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go look at that map again. I want to memorize every line of it."