Su Dingfang stared at the light screen.
He looked at his future self, Supreme Commander of the Expeditionary Force, with the focused hunger of a man who had been shown exactly what he was capable of and wanted to reach that point immediately.
Naturally, he turned to see the emperor's reaction.
Instead, he found Li Shimin staring at the back of Zhangsun Wuji's head with enough intensity to bore a hole through it.
Zhangsun Wuji, for his part, pretended to have developed a sudden and overwhelming interest in the tactical map. He pulled Hou Junji into a discussion of military strategy, just to avoid making eye contact with the throne.
"The Turkic rebels rely almost entirely on light cavalry," Zhangsun Wuji said, raising his voice just enough to carry across the hall. "If our infantry forms a shield wall and holds its ground, what can they realistically do against it? General Su will defeat them again without question. Would you not agree, Duke of Liguo?"
Hou Junji had already noticed the emperor's expression and quietly put a little more distance between himself and the chancellor. He chose the safest answer available.
"The Duke of Qi possesses a truly unique tactical perspective."
Zhangsun Wuji matched the movement and stepped closer.
"But these Turkic rebels scatter one year and return the next. Defeat them today, and in a few years they are raiding the frontier again. Do you have a permanent solution to that cycle, Duke of Liguo?"
Hou Junji blinked. He was being asked to solve the entire Western Turkic problem on the spot, while standing next to a man who might or might not be heading toward treason charges in the future.
"No," he replied immediately. "I have no solution."
Zhangsun Wuji's expression tightened. "You have no opinion at all?"
"I have many opinions," Hou Junji said carefully. "I just do not wish to share them right now."
The words were perfectly diplomatic. The tone suggested he would rather be literally anywhere else.
Zhangsun Wuji studied him for a moment, then turned back to the map with the air of a man who had just been handed a bowl of cold porridge and told it was breakfast.
Hou Junji exhaled quietly. He genuinely did not care about border strategy at this particular moment. His own future prospects for commanding troops were uncertain enough after everything the light screen had revealed. At least he still held the title of Grand General of the Right Guard. Zhangsun Wuji, by comparison, appeared to be heading toward forced suicide in exile.
Relative to that, Hou Junji thought, I am doing fine. I am doing great, actually.
He took another small step backward.
Li Shimin ignored the performance entirely. Turning away from Zhangsun Wuji, his expression softened considerably when his gaze settled on Su Dingfang.
"Dingfang, you possess both courage and judgment. You are a true pillar of the Tang."
One sentence was all it took.
Su Dingfang's face split into a broad grin, and he cast a deliberately smug glance in Li Ji's direction.
Eat your heart out, Maogong.
Li Ji closed his eyes.
What I cannot see cannot affect me. What I cannot see cannot affect me. What I cannot—
He opened one eye. Su Dingfang was still grinning.
He closed it again.
Privately, however, he found himself agreeing with Zhangsun Wuji's assessment.
The Western Turks were, in some respects, an even more difficult problem than the Eastern Turks had been. The Eastern Turks lived close enough to Tang territory that trade, smuggling, and espionage gradually narrowed the gap in equipment and military technology.
The Western Turks lacked that advantage, but their ability to move freely across the vast central steppe made them a persistent strategic challenge all the same.
Before he could pursue the thought any further, the light screen supplied the answer.
[Lightscreen]
[Now, let us talk about what Su Dingfang actually did, because the historical records make it sound easy. It was not.
Splitting his forces while outnumbered ten to one was not arrogance. Su Dingfang had calculated every variable before the first rider moved. This was not a gamble. This was a lesson.
The moment the battle began, Little Lu understood that something was wrong.
He looked at the Tang infantry contingent in front of him, assessed the numbers as manageable, and ordered a blunt forward push with both flanks swinging to envelop. Standard doctrine. Reliable results.
The Tang infantry did not panic. They retreated calmly up a nearby hillside, secured the high ground, locked their shields together, and presented a wall of long spears to anyone who wanted to come up after them.
Little Lu had one hundred thousand cavalry. Against a defended slope with shield walls and spears, those numbers meant almost nothing. The tactical situation had become roughly equivalent to a dog trying to bite a curled-up hedgehog. There was no angle that worked.
He launched three consecutive waves of assault. All three achieved nothing.
Now, let us pause and appreciate this. One hundred thousand cavalry. Three waves. Zero progress. Imagine the frustration. Imagine watching your unstoppable army bounce off a wall of shields like waves against a cliff. Little Lu was probably screaming internally by the third wave.
Battlefields operate on simple logic. If you cannot break my formation, it becomes my turn.
Su Dingfang watched the Turkic momentum stall and their formations lose cohesion. He did not hesitate. He released the heavy cavalry.
Spears holding the front. Iron-clad Tang cavalry hitting the rear. The official records describe the result in two words: utter collapse.
Su Dingfang pushed through the enemy line like a man walking through an empty field. Watching his army evaporate around him, Little Lu abandoned his dignity and ran.
The Tang army chased them for thirty li. Nearly thirty thousand men were killed or captured. Two hundred chiefs and senior officers were beheaded on the spot.
A complete, flawless victory. For the Tang military at this point in history, it was another day of work. For the Turks, it was a sharp reminder of something they had apparently forgotten: their supreme khan was a former Tang exchange student. Why were they fighting this war again?
That same night, the five tribes comprising the Western Turk right wing experienced a collective moment of geopolitical clarity. Before Su Dingfang had finished breakfast the following morning, their surrender documents had arrived.
The left wing showed slightly more spine, but only marginally. Their chiefs led them south and surrendered to the secondary Tang invasion force.
The tree fell and the monkeys scattered. Little Lu took his core loyalists and fled west at full speed.
Facing the logistical task of processing prisoners and cleaning up the remaining resistance, Su Dingfang split his responsibilities. He assigned Xiao Siye and Porun to hunt down the factions that had refused to submit. Then he personally led an elite pursuit force after Little Lu.
The campaign had launched in early spring. Winter had other plans. A major blizzard buried the steppe.
His lieutenants requested a halt to rest the men. Su Dingfang refused. His reasoning was simple: if the Tang army was freezing, the enemy was freezing too. Little Lu would assume the weather made pursuit impossible and lower his guard. The blizzard was not an obstacle. It was a weapon.
Let me repeat that. He marched his men through a blizzard. Because he knew the enemy would not expect it. Because he understood that the weather was just another battlefield variable. This is not just command. This is psychology.
He marched his men through the blinding snow and chased Little Lu for six hundred li, finally running him down at Golden Tooth Mountain in what is now Kyrgyzstan.
A prepared force hitting an unprepared, freezing enemy who believed he had escaped. The Tang combat advantage was already overwhelming. Su Dingfang destroyed Little Lu's remaining core army in a single engagement.
The only genuinely awkward detail was that Little Lu happened to be out hunting when the Tang cavalry arrived at camp. He heard the commotion, did not return to investigate, grabbed a handful of surviving guards, and left with considerable speed.
The chase resumed. Another five hundred li. Su Dingfang cornered him again at the Suyab River in what is now Kazakhstan.
Another engagement. Little Lu's remaining forces were captured entirely. But Little Lu himself, his son, and a few dozen riders slipped through again and fled in the direction of Tashkent.
The man had now sprinted over twelve hundred li of steppe while being hunted by a sixty-year-old general. Let that sink in. A sixty-year-old man, chasing a fleeing khan across a thousand miles of frozen steppe, through a blizzard, without stopping.
Su Dingfang paused and acknowledged, with uncharacteristic openness, that his legs had nothing left to give in this particular chase.
Local politics resolved the problem. The lord of a city near Tashkent sent a polite envoy to the Tang camp with a message: he had captured Little Lu while the man was passing through his territory, and he wished to know when the Tang army would like to collect their delivery.
The campaign to annihilate the Western Turkic Khaganate was concluded.
From Chang'an to the Western Regions, then from the Altai Mountains to the Suyab River. A one-way journey of nearly seven thousand li, executed by a sixty-year-old general over a thousand years ago. The logistics alone should be impossible to process.
Once the Western Regions were cleared and stable, Xiao Siye found time to stop by Tashkent, pick up Little Lu, and bring him back to Chang'an to formally claim the credit.
For this campaign, Su Dingfang was promoted to Grand General of the Left Courageous Guard and granted the noble title Duke of Xing.
As for Little Lu, he was completely broken by the time they loaded him into chains for the journey home. During the march, he wept and confessed everything to Xiao Siye.
He said: "Emperor Taizong treated me with grace I could not repay. I betrayed him, and heaven has punished me accordingly. I only ask to be executed at the Zhao Mausoleum so my blood may apologize to Taizong."
Li Zhi reviewed this request and made a creative decision. He organized a grand prisoner presentation ceremony directly in front of Li Shimin's tomb.
Then he pardoned Little Lu's death sentence.
A living trophy carries considerably more utility than a dead one. Two months later, Li Zhi held an even larger ceremony at the Imperial Ancestral Temple for the New Year. The main attraction was, once again, Little Lu.
Being paraded as a spectacle twice in front of the people who mattered most to him completed whatever the battle had started. Little Lu suffered a total psychological collapse and died of severe depression less than a year later. Li Zhi issued a special decree to bury him beside the former Eastern Turkic Khan Illig Qaghan.
With this, the grand strategic framework Li Shimin had laid out for the Turkic problem was completed by his son.
The borders of the Tang expanded deep into Central Asia to a degree unprecedented in history. Tang prestige in the Western Regions reached its absolute peak. ]
The actual history lacked the dramatic twists of a novel, but Su Dingfang was completely satisfied. He had won, and he had won magnificently.
Li Jing, a man who rarely handed out praise, nodded in genuine appreciation.
"Feigning weakness to draw the enemy in. Winning the battle in a single decisive blow. Pursuing the enemy for a thousand miles through snow and ice. Driving them relentlessly from the western frontier. This is military command at its highest level."
Li Shiji offered his own assessment.
"Decisive in battle. Relentless in pursuit. Even if I had personally commanded that campaign, I could not have executed it better."
Su Dingfang was practically vibrating with excitement. He looked toward the emperor.
Li Shimin did not hold back.
"Dingfang, you possess both courage and strategic brilliance. You turn danger into victory and prepare thoroughly before you strike. One battle secures the frontier and protects the people. You are a pillar of the state."
Su Dingfang was overwhelmed with joy, but he kept his tone carefully humble.
"I still allowed the Shaboluo Khan to escape twice. If Your Majesty permits me to campaign while I remain in my prime, I swear I will capture him on the battlefield. We will not have to waste the stamina of our horses on another thousand-mile pursuit."
Li Shimin chuckled. As the former Prince of Qin, he had spent years commanding from the front. He knew exactly how difficult it was to catch an enemy commander determined to abandon his army and flee. Even so, he found Su Dingfang's enthusiasm deeply appealing.
"The Hexi Corridor remains unstable," Li Shimin said. "I will absolutely give you the opportunity to trample their royal tents beneath Tang cavalry once again."
Su Dingfang clasped his hands in a sharp salute.
Nearby, Yuchi Jingde stood with his arms crossed. The jealousy in his eyes was impossible to miss.
Look at him. Grinning like a fool. All that praise for one campaign. I have fought in more battles than he has had hot meals. Where is my parade?
His jaw tightened. He had been on the receiving end of the emperor's verbal corrections enough times to know better than to speak. But that did not mean he had to enjoy it.
Qin Qiong noticed the look and leaned closer, lowering his voice to a whisper.
"Watching a man you once defeated receive this much imperial favor. How does it feel? Does it hurt?"
Yuchi Jingde did not turn his head. "I have no idea what you are talking about."
"Your face says otherwise."
"My face is perfectly neutral. I am still handsome."
"Okay, you are handsome. But your neutral face now looks like someone just told you that your wife left you with the neighbor."
Yuchi Jingde's eye twitched. "Shubao, that is my neutral expression."
Qin Qiong fought back a smile. "If that is your neutral expression, I would hate to see you angry."
"You have seen me angry, Shubao. Several times."
"And it looked exactly like this."
Yuchi Jingde finally turned to glare at him. "Damn, you are annoying. Are you finished?"
"Not yet." Qin Qiong's voice dropped even lower. "During the wars against Dou Jiande and Liu Heita, we faced Su Dingfang in the field. Twice. Both times we beat him. You remember that, do you not?"
"Yeah, we beat him. I remember."
"And now the emperor is calling him a pillar of the state. A true foundation of the Tang. Does that not bother you?"
Yuchi Jingde was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was rougher than usual.
"It really bothers me."
"There it is."
"But I know better than to say anything about it."
Qin Qiong nodded slowly. "The emperor is laying the foundation for a century of prosperity. We need to earn our place in the next campaign, not cling to old achievements and let arrogance consume us."
Yuchi Jingde snorted. "You sound like my grandma, Shubao. Always nagging and annoying."
"And you have me as always as brothers, Jingde. If you are wrong, I will nag you."
"Okay, I surrender. I am just... still thinking, Shubao."
"Thinking what? With that kind of head you have, just follow me. It must be right."
Yuchi Jingde grunted. "That is what I think. I asked myself... that you are right."
Qin Qiong laughed and hit Yuchi Jingde on the head.
"Damn you. Do not think again. Just admit I was right."
Yuchi Jingde shot him a look. "If you tell anyone about this conversation—"
"I will not say a word," Qin Qiong said, his eyes gleaming. "To anyone. Ever."
Yuchi Jingde studied his face for a moment. "I do not believe you."
"Good instincts."
Yuchi Jingde shook his head, but the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
He had personally killed Li Yuanji at Xuanwu Gate, then walked into the inner palace still covered in blood and calmly asked the retired emperor to hand over authority. That achievement had earned him a political standing so enormous that few dared speak of it openly. It had also left him with a confidence that occasionally bordered on recklessness.
But watching his own future forced retirement play out on the light screen had done something to him. It was one thing to hear warnings from Qin Qiong. It was another thing entirely to see history record your eventual fate in cold, unchangeable ink.
Maybe Shubao had been right all along.
While the generals imagined future campaigns, Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui were occupied with a different calculation.
While the generals imagined future campaigns, Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui were occupied with a different calculation.
Fang Xuanling watched Su Dingfang celebrate, then shifted his gaze to Zhangsun Wuji, who was staring at the light screen with a deeply furrowed brow.
That man is going to die. By his own nephew's order. Forced suicide. In exile.
He looked at Du Ruhui. Du Ruhui gave the slightest nod.
Yes. I was thinking the same thing.
Two of the greatest political minds of the Tang dynasty had just completed an entire conversation without speaking a word.
Fang Xuanling leaned slightly closer. "Do you see it too, right?"
Du Ruhui kept his voice low enough that only Fang Xuanling could hear. "The timing is too precise to be coincidence."
"Exactly. One year. One year after Su Dingfang destroys the Western Turks, Zhangsun Wuji is gone."
Du Ruhui nodded slowly. "Once the Western Turks were crushed, Li Zhi's military prestige became untouchable. He had already deposed the empress. Then he launched a major foreign campaign and won decisively. Two grand victory ceremonies. The military was his."
"And Zhangsun Wuji had lost his leverage," Fang Xuanling said, completing the thought. "Whatever influence he once held over his nephew had evaporated. The trap had closed."
They exchanged a look.
Fang Xuanling sighed. "It is remarkable, really. Watching a political disaster unfold from the future."
"Remarkable is one word for it," Du Ruhui said dryly. "Terrifying is another."
"It is also terrifying. But it is also remarkable."
Du Ruhui shook his head. "You know what else is remarkable? The late Empress Zhangsun saw this coming. She warned the emperor repeatedly to strip her brother of the prime ministership."
"I remember."
"She said concentrating too much authority in a single clan would eventually invite a devastating political reckoning."
Fang Xuanling glanced at Zhangsun Wuji, who was now muttering something to himself while staring at the screen. "She was absolutely right."
"Her caution is remarkable. She knew what the consequence would be when power is concentrated in one hand."
"That is unfair," Fang Xuanling said. "She was a genius and always cautious. Sometimes she was merely correct."
Du Ruhui shot him a look. "Is there a difference?"
"Right implies certainty. Correct implies accuracy. She was both."
"What kind of opinion is that?"
"I am a chancellor. I just say what I want to say."
Du Ruhui chuckled despite himself. "Damn you."
Fang Xuanling's smile faded. He looked at the light screen, then at the men around them, then at Du Ruhui.
"Xuanling," Du Ruhui said quietly, "you are thinking about your son, are you not?"
Fang Xuanling was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"My son... damn that beast. He is so incompetent, he will be executed for treason. Alongside his wife, the princess."
Du Ruhui did not answer. There was nothing to say.
"I spent my entire life building this family's reputation," Fang Xuanling continued. "I served three emperors. I helped found the dynasty. I gave everything to this empire. And this beast ruined everything. My son will be remembered as a traitor."
He shook his head slowly.
"Every night I go home and I look at him. I know he is still young. He has so much potential. And I know that one day, he will destroy everything I built. That makes me want to beat him."
Du Ruhui placed a hand on his shoulder. "It is not certain, Xuanling. The light screen showed one possible future. It does not have to be the future we choose."
"Does it not? You know how these things work. Once you get too close to the imperial family, disaster is only a matter of time. One wrong word. One wrong alliance. One wrong choice. And everything collapses."
Du Ruhui was silent for a moment. "And your son has always been too close to the imperial family."
"Too close. Too ambitious. Too confident." Fang Xuanling let out a bitter laugh. "He has all my arrogance and none of my caution."
"That is every father's fear."
"And your son? Gou?"
Du Ruhui sighed heavily. "The same. Every time I see him, I want to exile him. Let him live in the Gobi. He does not understand the danger. He thinks because we are chancellors, he is untouchable. But we both know that title means nothing when the wind changes."
"So what do we do?"
Du Ruhui looked at the light screen, then back at Fang Xuanling.
"Of course, we need to beat them. Exile them. We warn them. We make them understand that getting close to the imperial family is playing with fire. And that fire will burn your house and your entire family."
"And if they do not listen?"
"Come on, do not be soft. Just hit them. Cripple them. We keep them away. We find them positions far from the capital. Far from the palace. Far from anyone with power. If necessary, send them to the Gobi Desert or the Taklamakan Desert. Let them eat dirt."
Fang Xuanling nodded slowly. "Oh boy, is that too extreme? But maybe that might work. Keep them busy. Keep them out of trouble, right?"
"We do not need them to be famous. Let them be nothing. As long as they do not create trouble and are safe, that is a blessing for us."
Du Ruhui nodded firmly. "Exactly. A living nothing is better than a dead hero. I would rather my son be a nobody in the desert than a corpse in Chang'an."
Before either of them could say another word, Li Shimin's voice cut through the conversation.
"Hah.. he actually believed he deserved burial beside the Zhao Mausoleum?"
There was something between contempt and satisfaction in his tone.
"Li Zhi handled it correctly. Let him live and watch everything slip away. That is real psychological warfare."
On the light screen, the map of the Tang expanded across the Western Regions and beyond. Vast stretches of the continent glowed imperial red.
Studying the map, Li Shimin suddenly noticed something.
His eyes narrowed.
He stared at the lower-left corner of the projection.
Why did the Tibetan Empire look so irritating?