"This Pei Xingjian is truly something else."
Emperor Li Shimin did not know whether to laugh or cry. He stood before his desk in the Ganlu Pavilion, shook his head, and said, "Even if he had no intention of escorting the Persian prince personally, he could at least have assigned a small detachment to see the man safely to Tokharistan."
Su Dingfang chuckled and stepped forward.
"Your Majesty is looking at it from the perspective of benevolence. A general, however, must also consider practical matters. The envoy consisted of only a few dozen men, yet Pei Xingjian used it to suppress a regional rebellion, capture its leaders, and even have a stone monument erected in his honor. That is an extraordinary military achievement."
Su Dingfang found himself nodding in deep approval of the future general's actions. Compared to pacifying the Western Regions without losing a single soldier, escorting an exiled Persian prince to a kingdom that no longer existed was hardly an urgent matter.
"Traveling from the Western Regions to Tokharistan and then returning to Chang'an would take at least another half a year," Su Dingfang continued. "By the time he arrived back at court, the celebrations would be over and His Majesty's attention would have shifted elsewhere. He might not even receive a private audience."
Li Shimin conceded the point. It was crude, but politically sound. The last prince of the Sassanid dynasty had been little more than a convenient banner, one that Pei Xingjian had used to conceal his true intentions.
While Li Shimin admired the sheer cunning of the stratagem, a glaring tactical question remained.
"Was there no one manning the Four Garrisons of Anxi?" Li Shimin frowned. "The Western Regions are remote. The geography is critical. Such a location demands elite troops permanently stationed for defense."
He clearly remembered the broadcast mentioning a military presence after the conquest of Gaochang. If the Tang established the Four Garrisons of Anxi, those outposts should logically house four standing armies. Pei Xingjian's bloodless coup was brilliant. However, a traditional Tang commander should have simply mobilized the four garrisons, crushed the rebels with overwhelming force, and terrified the surrounding kingdoms into total submission.
Conserving military strength through trickery was smart, but in Li Shimin's view, overwhelming force was often the simplest and most effective answer.
Whenever a logistical contradiction appeared, Du Ruhui would mentally review the Light Screen's previous broadcasts. He stroked his beard and formulated a grim hypothesis.
"The broadcast previously mentioned a grueling, thirteen-year war with Goguryeo. I fear the financial cost was staggering."
Du Ruhui paused. He struggled to find a respectful way to refer to the future Emperor Li Zhi. He settled for diplomatic vagueness. "It is entirely possible that the Son of Heaven of that era disbanded the Anxi garrisons to reduce military expenditures."
Li Shimin widened his eyes. He thought about his son Li Zhi. He remembered Li Zhi's chronic hesitation regarding the Tibetan Empire and his generally passive administrative style. Du Ruhui's deduction was almost certainly correct.
"This Li Zhi truly has no sense at all!" Li Shimin snapped.
Standing quietly in the corner, Zhangsun Wuji mentally applauded the Emperor's criticism. He also began calculating his own immediate future. Would it be inappropriate to remain in the palace a little longer tonight? Perhaps His Majesty might invite him to dinner. More importantly, he desperately needed a private conversation with his imperial nephew.
Furthermore, he desperately needed a private moment to explain to the Emperor that his future reputation for "abusing power" was surely a historical misunderstanding. The Light Screen kept mentioning future scandals one after another, and his once-promising political future was beginning to look increasingly dangerous.
While the cabinet ministers shared a moment of exasperated amusement over the Emperor's wordplay, one man in the room turned bright red.
Li Ji stared at the floor.
The Light Screen had established two concrete facts. First, the Goguryeo war drained the Tang treasury dry. Second, the general who finally conquered Goguryeo was Li Ji.
The room suddenly grew very heavy.
Li Shimin noticed the mortified expression on his top general's face. The Emperor immediately pivoted to absorb the blame.
"The responsibility for the Goguryeo campaign rests entirely with me," Li Shimin declared. His voice was firm. "When the time comes, I shall personally lead the expedition to pacify the Liaodong region. We will advance by land and sea. We will settle the matter in a single, decisive campaign. I will not leave this burden to exhaust General Maogong."
Li Ji froze, staring at the Son of Heaven, completely unsure how to respond. He watched helplessly as a legendary, history-defining military achievement grew wings and flew away. The Emperor had just casually confiscated his future glory.
Seated calmly nearby, Su Dingfang fought a losing battle to keep a very big smug smile off his face.
[Lightscreen]
[Pei Xingjian's blatant abandonment left Prince Narsieh with a lot of complicated feelings. We can only imagine the colorful curses the Persian royal directed at Pei Xingjian, probably going all the way back to his ninth generation of ancestors. After all, he had been dragged across the desert as a prop, used as bait, and then casually forgotten like an old piece of luggage.
For Emperor Li Zhi, however, Pei Xingjian's return was nothing short of a godsend.
The Great Tang was facing a severe shortage of elite commanders.
In 667 AD, the veteran general Su Dingfang died of illness while guarding the Hexi Corridor.
Two years later, the legendary Li Ji passed away.
Not long afterward, the Tang suffered a disastrous defeat at the Dafei River. The Tibetan Empire became increasingly aggressive, while the various nomadic tribes of the Western Regions began probing the empire's frontiers.
Against this grim backdrop, Pei Xingjian's sudden rise to prominence finally gave Emperor Li Zhi something to smile about.
In the same year that Pei Xingjian escorted the captured Western Turk rebels back to Chang'an, Li Zhi immediately dispatched him once again.
The Eastern Turks were causing trouble.
This time, knowing he had a genuine military genius at his disposal, Li Zhi mobilized a staggering force of three hundred thousand men and placed Pei Xingjian in overall command.
The Old Book of Tang praised this mobilization, calling it an expedition of unprecedented scale and grandeur.
But let us be honest here.
If you look at the legendary victories of Wei Qing and Huo Qubing during the Han Dynasty, or the lightning conquests of the Zhenguan era, a clear pattern emerges.
When fighting steppe cavalry, overwhelming numbers are rarely the deciding factor. More often than not, an oversized army simply destroys its own supply lines and starves itself into defeat.
Fortunately, Pei Xingjian was more than capable of carrying this enormous burden.
He managed the logistics of three hundred thousand men flawlessly. He protected his supply routes, systematically compressed the movement space of the Turkic cavalry, and ultimately crushed them at the Battle of Black Mountain.
One particular tactic he used was hiding armed soldiers inside grain carts. When the Turks raided the supply train, the soldiers burst out and slaughtered them. The Turks never saw it coming.
Following the victory, however, supplies had reached critical levels and winter was rapidly approaching.
Pei Xingjian had no choice but to withdraw.
The following year, Pei Xingjian marched north again.
This time, he left the massive army behind and relied instead on psychological warfare.
He systematically fed false information to the two leading Eastern Turk chieftains, sowing deep suspicion between them.
One of the chieftains, Ashina Funian, felt compelled to prove his loyalty to the rebellion.
He left his family and supplies at Mount Jinya and marched out to ambush the Tang forces. The moment he left, Pei Xingjian launched a surgical strike and captured Mount Jinya.
The two rebel leaders completely turned on each other.
They began sending secret letters to Pei Xingjian, begging to surrender and accusing the other of treason.
Having secured Pei Xingjian's solemn promise of amnesty, both leaders laid down their arms.
This Eastern Turk rebellion should have ended perfectly right there. But a political disaster occurred back in the capital.
Prime Minister Pei Yan, whose brain was rotting from envy, did not care that they were from the same broader clan.
He submitted a report to the throne claiming the Turks only surrendered because another general, Cheng Wuting, fought bravely and blocked their retreat. Pei Yan argued that Pei Xingjian deserved zero credit.
To the astonishment of future historians, Emperor Li Zhi, operating with a severe deficit of basic logic, blindly believed Prime Minister Pei Yan's argument. Worse still, on December 5, 681 AD, he ordered the execution of the two surrendered Turkic leaders, displaying their heads in the market.
Stripped of his military merits and his honor tarnished, with promises to the Turkic leaders broken by his own government, Pei Xingjian let out a long sigh. He accurately predicted that the Eastern Turks would never trust the Tang Dynasty again.
"I fear that after killing those who have surrendered, no one will want to surrender again," he said.
History proved him right.
Just two years later, the Eastern Turks launched a massive, vengeful rebellion. Emperor Li Zhi panicked and immediately summoned Pei Xingjian to take command.
Pei Xingjian, however, did not give the Emperor the opportunity to ruin his work a third time.
Shortly after accepting the commission, he conveniently died of illness in his own home.
He was sixty-four years old.
Some historians suspect that Pei Yan's betrayal broke him, and he simply lost the will to continue fighting for an ungrateful emperor.
But the frontier was still burning. Someone had to fix the mess.
Desperate, the court recalled a man who had been languishing in political exile for five long years. They handed him the commander's seal.
At sixty-nine years old, Xue Rengui answered the call.
He shared a brief, solemn meeting with the heavily ill Emperor Li Zhi in the capital. Then, the old tiger rode north to the Yunzhou frontline.
The Eastern Turks had celebrated the news of Pei Xingjian's death.
They assumed the Tang military would crumble without their leading strategist. They were completely unprepared for the new commander. This old man charged the frontlines with a ferocity that made the Turks look tame.
Confused and battered, the Turkic vanguard sent a rider forward to shout across the battlefield. "Identify yourself! What is your name?"
A voice thundered back. "Xue Rengui!"
The Turks laughed. "Do not lie to us! We know Xue Rengui was exiled to Xiangzhou. We know he died there!"
In response, a lone rider spurred his horse out of the Tang formation. He rode directly toward the Turkic lines. He stopped out of bow range and slowly reached up. He pulled off his helmet.
The Turks stared at that face. The blood drained from their cheeks. Absolute terror ripped through their ranks. Their will to fight evaporated in an instant.
Several veteran Turkic warriors, men who had fought alongside Xue Rengui during the old campaigns against the Tiele tribes, physically dropped their weapons.
They dismounted, fell to their knees, and bowed deeply to the old general. Then, they climbed back on their horses and fled the battlefield. They completely refused to raise a blade against him.
Watching the enemy morale shatter into dust, Xue Rengui calmly placed his helmet back on his head. He drew his weapon and signaled the charge.
It was a massacre.
The Tang forces decapitated over ten thousand men and captured thirty thousand prisoners. They seized thirty thousand head of cattle and sheep. The Tang cavalry rode down the fleeing Turks for hundreds of miles before finally turning back.
For the Tang soldiers, it felt like a ghost had returned.
They had not tasted this specific brand of absolute, overwhelming "Zhenguan-style" victory in decades.
With a literal god of war leading them, how could mere bandits dare to strike their borders? Who could stop them now? They would go on a killing spree.
But for Xue Rengui, a man whose twilight years were marred by political betrayal and exile, this spectacular victory at Yunzhou was merely a final burst of fading light.
Six months after the slaughter, he died of illness on the freezing frontier.
This legendary warrior in the white robes was handpicked by Emperor Taizong but never fully utilized in his youth.
He burned brilliantly through the reign of Emperor Gaozong.
Dragging his aged, battered body into the fray, he delivered a highly dignified conclusion to the military legacy of two emperors.]
Hearing the specific dates of their own deaths did not visibly shake Li Ji or Su Dingfang.
If dying of illness at seventy was considered an untimely tragedy, they only needed to look at their Emperor's lifespan. If dying peacefully in bed was considered an undignified end, they only needed to look at the bloody fates awaiting Zhangsun Wuji and Hou Junji.
The two veteran generals had survived the chaos that accompanied the fall of the Sui Dynasty.
Compared to that, life and death no longer seemed particularly frightening.
"To achieve glory and leave a name in history. This life has been immensely fortunate." Su Dingfang offered a quiet, simple summary.
Li Ji immediately seized the opportunity to demonstrate his legendary political instincts.
"To use our skills. To expand the borders for the nation. To eliminate threats for His Majesty. To slaughter the barbarians for the Great Tang."
Li Ji bowed slightly toward the Emperor. "These achievements rely entirely on His Majesty's grace and refusal to abandon us. How could we dare claim the merit for ourselves?"
Su Dingfang gritted his teeth. Damn this old fox.
He suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to drag Li Ji out to the training courtyard, put on heavy armor, and beat the man senseless.
Fortunately, Li Shimin was far too distracted by the military data to notice the passive-aggressive rivalry.
"Three hundred thousand troops?" Li Shimin whispered.
The Emperor felt a swirling vortex of conflicting emotions.
A small and highly irrational part of him was almost jealous.
Commanding an army of that size was a logistical miracle.
But that feeling was immediately buried beneath a mountain of strategic frustration.
He had left his successor a perfect empire.
He left behind brilliant civil ministers, peerless generals, elite soldiers, and secure borders. How did his son manage to let nomadic raiders push him to the brink of panic?
Deploying three hundred thousand men to swat the Eastern Turks was not a flex of power. It was a blatant admission of strategic bankruptcy.
Now think, who was left to farm the land? How much money would be required for the victory bonuses? What actual deterrent effect did a slow-moving, massive army provide against fast cavalry? Are you too rich and do not know how to spend your money? This kid really needs a very good spanking.
"To manage the nomadic tribes, you only need to support a faction loyal to the Tang," Li Shimin explained, his voice tight with frustration. "Then you strike swiftly and annihilate anyone showing signs of rebellion. It is a simple formula."
He shook his head in disgust.
"Mobilizing three hundred thousand men means feeding three hundred thousand mouths and countless horses. It drains the imperial treasury dry.
By the time such a massive, slow-moving army arrives, the enemy has already ridden away. Then, when our troops inevitably withdraw because supplies run short, the enemy simply returns to raid the borders.
What is the point?"
Fang Xuanling nodded vigorously.
Numbers meant little on the steppe. Once the main army withdrew, the nomads would return to their old habits. The only effective deterrent was swift and brutal retaliation. You had to leave behind a lesson they would never forget.
Furthermore, as the man responsible for the empire's finances, Fang Xuanling felt a headache coming on merely imagining the grain, horses, and transport required to sustain three hundred thousand men in the frontier.
That money could build cities, repair canals, or establish academies.
Looking at the tragic fates of these loyal generals, everyone in Ganlu Hall gradually arrived at the same conclusion.
Prince Li Zhi possessed remarkably little understanding of military affairs.
Li Shimin stroked his beard as his eyes lingered on the names displayed upon the Light Screen.
Pei Xingjian was clearly a commander of the highest caliber.
He possessed a profound understanding of strategy and psychological warfare. If he relied more on schemes than personal charges, it was likely because his age no longer permitted him to lead cavalry assaults in person. After all, his elder brother, Pei Xingyan, had been renowned as a fierce vanguard warrior.
If Li Shimin could recruit the young Pei Xingjian now and personally cultivate him, another peerless general might emerge.
Then there was Xue Rengui.
Just hearing the story made the emperor's heart race.
He loved this kind of pure military talent.
If Xue Rengui's family had not fallen into poverty and slipped beneath the notice of the aristocracy, Li Shimin would probably already know his name.
The emperor immediately made up his mind.
The Ministry of Revenue would scour the household registers at once.
He wanted Xue Rengui brought to the palace tonight.
Preferably with a bow in his hands.
The broadcast only reinforced a principle that Li Shimin had long held dear.
"A Tang emperor does not necessarily need to ride into battle personally," he declared to his ministers.
"But a Tang emperor must understand warfare."
"The great affairs of state are sacrifice and war. If an emperor blindly throws massive armies at every problem, he squanders the wealth of the empire and diminishes its prestige.
That is unacceptable."
---
In the distant city of Chengdu, Fa Zheng let out a long breath. He was deeply impressed by the sheer prowess of the Tang commanders. A sixty-nine-year-old general personally leading a cavalry charge was almost beyond belief.
Yet one question continued to trouble him.
"My Lord," Fa Zheng said, turning toward Liu Bei, "does it not seem that the Tang military gradually loses its edge with each passing generation?"
Liu Bei shifted slightly, easing the ache in his leg. He looked at his brilliant adviser and slowly shook his head.
"It is not that the later generations are weak, Xiaozhi," he said quietly. "It is simply that the armies of the Zhenguan era were too terrifying. They cannot be measured by ordinary standards."
Pei Xingjian's stratagems and Xue Rengui's heroics were certainly extraordinary, but they still fell within the realm of understandable military doctrine.
But the early Tang? The campaigns of Li Shimin's generation? Chasing the Tuyuhun Kingdom for three thousand miles across freezing mountains? Annihilating the entire Eastern Turkic Khaganate with a three-thousand-man cavalry raid in the middle of a blizzard?
Liu Bei smiled a bitter smile. Those were not the actions of normal men.