"The Uyghurs possessed a genuine loyalty to the Tang. Impressive. This is good news."
Li Shimin muttered the words, his tone layered with meaning.
He recognized the name Tumidu from intelligence reports submitted by his Hundred Cavalry network. He just never expected the tribal leader to be so politically astute.
And his son, Porun, had clearly exhausted himself fighting for the Tang's expansion into the Western Regions. The young man was practically a rising military star.
He treated the Tang banner with absolute reverence. Whenever Chang'an called, he came.
That loyalty only made the future sting more complicated.
Li Shimin remembered the earlier broadcasts. He remembered how his descendant, Emperor Suzong, had hired these exact same Uyghurs to recapture the two capitals during the An Lushan Rebellion. The cost of that alliance was allowing the Uyghurs to violently pillage Chang'an and Luoyang for three days and three nights.
The contradiction gave Li Shimin a headache. If not for the barrier of time, he would have mobilized the army and beaten them to the ground right now. Burn their tents. Salt their pastures. Make sure the Uyghurs never existed as a threat again. Out of pure preventative frustration.
He let out a long breath.
But they are useful now. Porun is useful now. His father was useful. I cannot punish people for something they have not done yet.
He rubbed his temples.
This is the problem with knowing the future. You want to strangle everyone who will eventually cause trouble, but half of them are still children, and the other half have not done anything wrong yet.
Du Ruhui stepped forward carefully.
"However, these violent usurpations happen consecutively. If we intend to govern the barbarian tribes, we must establish proper defensive plans."
Li Shimin nodded slowly. One crisis at a time.
He shelved the complicated Uyghur problem for another day. He needed to focus on the immediate prize: the military commanders.
He turned his attention back to Su Dingfang, offering a warm compliment.
"Dingfang, you can pacify the Western Regions and suppress the Liaodong peninsula. Your talent for commanding troops easily surpasses your peers."
Su Dingfang puffed out his chest. Deep down, he felt a profound wave of gratitude toward the future Emperor Li Zhi for actually utilizing his talents.
However, pride was a tricky thing. If a man could achieve supreme military glory at thirty, why would he want to wait until his late fifties to be praised as a "late bloomer"?
Basking in the Emperor's admiration, Su Dingfang immediately put on his most humble demeanor. He bowed deeply.
"I cannot claim such undeserved credit. I merely borrowed the weight of the Great Tang's majesty. And the Great Tang only possesses such majesty because of Your Majesty's unparalleled brilliance. So my reputation is built entirely upon your shadow."
Nearby, Li Shiji's eyes widened in absolute horror.
Cuih... Where is the dignity of a frontline war god? How can a battle-hardened killer possess such thick skin?
He was disgusted. Li Shimin, on the other hand, was absolutely delighted.
Hou Junji stood in the background, drowning in jealousy.
I know how to flatter the Emperor too! I have a whole script in my head.
But the problem is simple. If I opened my mouth right now to deliver those exact same compliments, the emperor would be disgusted. He would probably kick me on the spot.
Realizing his political career was essentially a smoldering ruin, Hou Junji sighed quietly.
Now, who can I even complain to?
Finding comfort in shared misery, he decided to check on his fellow doomed official.
"Duke of Qi," Hou Junji whispered, leaning toward Zhangsun Wuji. "Are you free tomorrow? Let us share a drink."
Zhangsun Wuji stared at Hou Junji for two solid seconds. He scanned the man from head to toe. Then, without saying a single word, he physically turned his back to him.
Ignoring the drama of his doomed officials, Li Shimin laughed out loud as a new name flashed across the Light Screen.
"This Liu Rengui actually possesses the talent to command an army? The man is full of surprises!"
Li Shimin remembered that name perfectly. A local official had recommended Liu Rengui, resulting in his promotion to County Defender of Chencang.
Almost immediately upon taking office, Liu Rengui encountered a problem. A high-ranking military officer named Lu Ning, a Zhechong Duwei no less, had been running wild in the county. The man was arrogant, violent, and thought his rank made him untouchable. He had repeatedly broken the law, and no one dared to stop him. Even the county magistrate was powerless.
Liu Rengui, however, was not the type to back down. He first issued a formal warning. Lu Ning ignored it completely. He grew bolder, openly insulting Liu Rengui in front of his subordinates and making it clear he answered to no one.
That was the last straw.
Liu Rengui ordered Lu Ning to be seized and beaten to death with heavy wooden staves on the spot. The explosive murder case landed directly on Li Shimin's desk.
The Emperor was furious. "What county official dares to kill my military commander?" he demanded. He ordered Liu Rengui brought to Chang'an for questioning.
But when Liu Rengui arrived, he was calm and composed. He told the emperor: "Lu Ning disrespected me, humiliated me in front of my subordinates, and refused to follow the law. I killed him as a warning to others."
Li Shimin reviewed the evidence Liu Rengui submitted. Every claim was factual. Lu Ning had indeed relied on his past achievements to violate imperial law repeatedly. He had terrorized the local population and treated the county government with contempt.
Wei Zheng, who was present at the time, stepped forward and spoke in Liu Rengui's defense. He pointed out that a major reason for the Sui dynasty's collapse was that local officials had lost all authority, and the people no longer respected the law. Liu Rengui had done exactly what a good official should do. He had enforced the law without fear or favor.
After reflection, Li Shimin's anger cooled. He changed his mind entirely.
"He deserved to die," Li Shimin said, his voice booming with pride. "The Tang desperately needs officials with that kind of ruthless decisiveness. So I promoted him to Magistrate of Xianyang."
Li Shimin felt incredibly smug about the whole ordeal. If he had acted on his initial temper, he would have severely punished Liu Rengui for executing a military officer without imperial consent. But keeping the grand vision in mind, Li Shimin forced his anger down. He judged the case fairly and rewarded the man's brutal efficiency.
Now, the Light Screen was confirming that his personnel choice was a masterstroke.
Du Ruhui stepped forward, raising his hands in formal congratulation.
"Congratulations, Your Majesty. Three talents have walked perfectly into your net."
The Chancellor's mind worked sharply. Liu Rengui was currently serving as a magistrate right next door in Xianyang. He was roughly thirty years old.
Zheng Rentai had been with Li Shimin since the very beginning. The Prince of Qin's mansion. He was part of the original crew. He had charged into battle against Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande alongside the Prince of Qin. And when the moment came, when the fate of the dynasty hung in the balance at Xuanwu Gate, he was one of those who walked through the gates and changed the course of history.
He had just been elevated to the Duke of Guizheng this very year. He was also around thirty years old.
For years, Zheng Rentai had mostly stayed in the background. The records barely mentioned his name. He was a solid soldier, dependable, always where he needed to be, but never the one grabbing the spotlight. Then came the Goguryeo campaign, and suddenly Zheng Rentai was there again. Right at the front. Finally getting the recognition he had been quietly building toward for decades.
Li Shimin understood men like Zheng Rentai. The ones who did the work without seeking the praise. The ones who showed up when it mattered and stayed in the shadows when it didn't.
Then there was Xue Rengui. The Light Screen made his background clear. His ancestors were prominent officials, but his father died early, causing the family's financial ruin.
That meant Xue Rengui could not be an undocumented peasant.
Combining those variables, handing the search parameters to the Ministry of Revenue would yield a result in days.
Li Jing stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"According to the Light Screen's timeline, Your Majesty asked me if I would join the Goguryeo campaign during the eighteenth year of Zhenguan. If that timeline holds true, this Xue Rengui is currently only sixteen years old. It is the perfect age to begin his military conditioning."
Hearing about Xue Rengui's miserable future, Su Dingfang initially felt a spark of camaraderie. One man swept the streets while the other guarded a door. They were practically brothers in unappreciated misery.
But hearing the kid was only sixteen completely shattered that sympathy. Su Dingfang instantly viewed him as a threat to his own future promotions.
Li Shimin smiled broadly, waving his hand to calm the room.
"There is no rush. Let us watch the rest of his story first."
Earlier, Li Shimin had been deeply worried about finding a successor for the aging Li Jing.
Now, his only problem was figuring out where to put all these aggressive military geniuses. The Tang's talent pool was incredibly deep.
As for the narrator mentioning a "shameful battle", Li Shimin was not particularly concerned.
After everything the Light Screen had shown them, he had learned one thing: whenever the narrator sounded dramatic, someone usually ended up conquering a country.
[Lightscreen]
[The absolute most legendary aspect of Xue Rengui was his archery. The man was a human ballista. He was a god-tier marksman.
During his initial deployment to the Liaodong peninsula, Xue Rengui's battlefield debut was meticulously recorded by historians.
He treated the Goguryeo army like a personal playground.
The text reads: "Dressed in pure white, gripping a halberd, a heavy bow strapped to his waist. He roared and charged first, slaughtering everything in his path. Nothing could stand before him."
If the legendary Lu Bu suddenly resurrected from the grave, he would take one look at Xue Rengui and respectfully step back three paces.
After Emperor Li Zhi remembered his existence and tossed him back onto the Liaodong battlefield, Xue Rengui proved a simple truth.
Sitting in a guardhouse for fifteen years does not dull the blade of a true killer. He was still the undisputed apex predator.
During the Battle of Mount Heng, the forty-five-year-old Xue Rengui decided to show off. He charged directly into the enemy formation entirely unarmed, carrying only his bow. He fired from horseback at full gallop. Every single time his bowstring snapped, an enemy dropped dead. He completely shattered the psychological morale of the Goguryeo forces.
Infuriated by this arrogant display, the Goguryeo commanders deployed their own elite sniper.
At the Battle of Shicheng, this enemy marksman rapidly killed over a dozen Tang soldiers. Xue Rengui was enraged. This time, he did not even bring his bow.
The historical record states: "He charged alone on horseback. The enemy sniper lost his arrows and could not even raise his hands in time. Xue Rengui captured him alive."
Charging a sniper barehanded. Dodging every single arrow. Ripping the man off his horse and dragging him back as a living trophy. Xue Rengui elevated military disrespect to an art form.
Once the two armies were finalized for the Uyghur suppression campaign, Emperor Li Zhi hosted a grand banquet in the palace to send off his generals.
Ancient entertainment was fairly limited. Once the wine flowed and the room grew loud, Li Zhi looked at his favorite commander and smiled.
The Emperor said: "I have heard that the legendary archers of antiquity could pierce seven layers of armor with a single arrow. My beloved general, would you care to try piercing five layers?"
Xue Rengui calmly put down his chopsticks. He stood up, drew his heavy bow, and fired. The arrow punched cleanly through all five layers of heavy iron armor.
Li Zhi was absolutely stunned. He immediately ordered a set of elite Mingguang armor to be brought out and gifted it to Xue Rengui on the spot.
Piercing five layers was obviously not Xue Rengui's physical limit. The later fictionalized "Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties" exaggerated this scene, claiming Xue Rengui laughed and demanded nine layers to truly put on a show.
Sadly, Xue Rengui was a bit too politically conservative in front of the actual Emperor. He just did the bare minimum requested.
Fortunately, his next stage was much larger.
When the Uyghur usurper Bisudu heard the Tang army was marching, he did not run. Through heavy bribery and political promises, he rallied a massive coalition of the Tiele Nine Tribes.
He managed to scrape together a terrifying horde of one hundred thousand cavalrymen. They met the Tang army at the Tianshan Mountains.
Bisudu possessed a fatal misconception. He genuinely believed the Tang military only won battles because their armor was thicker and their steel was sharper.
He believed that in raw courage, the warriors of the steppe were superior.
To prove his point, Bisudu sent dozens of his absolute best warriors to the front lines. They rode up to the Tang formation, screaming insults and demanding single combat.
Xue Rengui did not panic. He rode out of the Tang formation completely alone.
One man charging dozens of elite warriors.
Riding at a full sprint, Xue Rengui executed his signature skill. He fired three arrows in rapid succession.
Three arrows. Three shattered skulls. The three loudest, most terrifying warriors hit the dirt before they even registered the threat.
The courage of the steppe shattered in an instant.
The promises of wealth and glory whispered by Bisudu evaporated. The primal terror of the Great Tang military came flooding back into their brains. None of the remaining warriors wanted to be the fourth target. Scrambling over themselves in sheer panic, the dozens of surviving warriors threw themselves off their horses and begged for surrender.
The Tang army stood in stunned silence. Even Xue Rengui paused. Were these the legendary warriors they were supposed to fight?
The brutal reality set in instantly. If the elite warriors collapsed after three arrows, the remaining one hundred thousand men were nothing more than walking military merits.
Xue Rengui raised his weapon and roared. The entire Tang army surged forward like an iron wave. The Tiele coalition shattered on impact. One hundred thousand men turned and fled in absolute chaos.
The Tang cavalry relentlessly hunted them across the northern desert, completely dissolving the massive army. Bisudu was trampled to death in the stampede, his body lost to the dirt. The surviving tribal leaders were captured in chains.
Xue Rengui returned home in total triumph. The victorious Tang soldiers marched through the gates singing a brand new song:
"The General pacifies Tianshan with three arrows, the strong warriors sing a long song as they enter the Han passes."
From that day forward, the Tiele Nine Tribes were permanently broken. They faded into the dust of history, never again possessing the strength to threaten the borders of the Great Tang. ]
A true god of war! My god of war!"
Li Shimin could no longer suppress his joy. The smile threatened to split his face in half.
Even veteran brawlers like Qin Qiong and Yuchi Jingde exchanged looks of genuine respect.
They were both vanguard fighters.
They understood the brutal physics of a battlefield perfectly. A warrior's primary job was to draw the enemy's attention and mentally break them before the main lines even crashed.
Xue Rengui executed that job flawlessly. Wearing blinding white armor. Charging into the fray with just a bow. Sprinting barehanded straight at an active sniper. Every single action was designed to inflict maximum psychological trauma on the enemy.
Qin Qiong shook his head, his voice dropping to a low murmur. "That is not just killing the enemy. That is executing their soul."
Yuchi Jingde grunted in agreement. "Imagine being a Goguryeo soldier watching that. A man in white charging at you with nothing but a bow. And every time he draws, someone dies. You would lose your nerve before the battle even started."
Qin Qiong nodded slowly. "And the song. He left behind a song. That is what makes it stick. Years later, people will still sing about it."
Yuchi Jingde snorted. "If I were a Tiele warrior who survived that, I would never tell anyone. Imagine admitting you were part of a hundred thousand men that got broken by three arrows. I would rather claim I was sick that day."
Qin Qiong laughed. "Or that you were guarding the camp."
"Exactly. Anything but 'I was there.'"
Li Shimin excitedly grabbed Du Ruhui's sleeve, firing off rapid instructions.
The moment this broadcast ended, the Chancellor was to scour the empire and drag this teenager to the capital. The Emperor of the Great Tang personally wanted to test the boy's archery skills!
The room went dead quiet.
Several ministers suddenly developed a very intense interest in the ceiling. Others found their shoes absolutely fascinating. A few began studying their own hands as if seeing them for the first time.
Everyone had remembered the same thing at the same time.
Li Shimin was also famous for his archery.
Specifically, his archery at Xuanwu Gate. The arrow that had found its mark in the throat of his older brother, Crown Prince Li Jiancheng.
"Cough, cough. Let us talk about something else."
"Yes. Something else. Anything else."
"The weather has been nice lately."
"The grain harvest looks promising this year."
"I heard the price of tea has gone down."
Meanwhile, Li Ji felt the invisible weight on his shoulders double in mass.
He glanced at Su Dingfang, who was currently staring at the ceiling, lost in deep tactical thought.
Then he thought about the thirty-six-year-old version of himself, comparing his resume to a teenager who could pacify an entire mountain range with three arrows. He suddenly felt incredibly old.
Wait, Li Ji thought in a panic. What is my signature tactical move?
He glanced sideways at the legendary Li Jing, who was standing perfectly relaxed with a warm smile on his face. Li Ji took a deep breath, recalibrating his ego.
Being the strongest fighter in the room is pointless. A general capable of annihilating nations relies on macro-strategy. Logistical superiority. Formational geometry. The seamless coordination of infantry and cavalry.
Besides, Xue Rengui has not even gone through his coming-of-age ceremony yet. Su Dingfang is just a mid-level officer. In terms of starting positions, I am leagues ahead of them both. I am a strategic mastermind. I do not need to win a sniper duel to prove my worth.
Li Jing lacked the neurotic internal monologue of his peers. He simply offered practical advice.
"Your Majesty, once you locate this Xue Rengui, please allow this old minister to test his knowledge of military strategy."
Li Shimin shook his head violently. He disagreed completely.
"Why would we bog down a god-tier shock trooper with dusty scrolls? He is meant to shatter the enemy with raw courage and overwhelming force! He exists to strike terror into their hearts!"
Li Jing frowned, holding his ground firmly.
"A supreme commander must possess both courage and intellect! If he only relies on brute force, he is just a weapon. Furthermore, the screen noted he was obsessed with Feng Shui and fortune-telling. If not for his intelligent wife, he would have wasted his entire life digging in the dirt. His worldview is clearly narrow. He must study military texts to fix his flawed foundation."
One was the ultimate Emperor on horseback. The other was the undisputed greatest general of the era.
Faced with a generational talent, neither man was willing to yield an inch on how to train him.
The hall fell into a thick silence.
The surrounding generals and chancellors simply exchanged amused glances, thoroughly enjoying the show.