Zhang Fei's eyes lit up like a kid who just spotted the last piece of candy in the jar.
"Now, Kongming can't play favorites!" he declared, his voice carrying across the Chengdu office. "It's about time Old Zhang got himself a proper weapon to swing around!"
He wasn't actually complaining. Zhang Fei understood the situation back during the Jingzhou campaigns. When Guan Yu needed a new weapon, it was a matter of life and death. The battlefield demanded it. But now? Now things were different. They had breathing room, resources, and time. Zhang Fei figured it was finally his turn to get something shiny and deadly.
Zhuge Liang was in a great mood today. The Light Screen had shown some incredible future technology, and he was buzzing like a scholar who had just stumbled into a hidden library of ancient texts.
"I could never forget you, Yide," Zhuge Liang promised.
He then turned toward the quiet figure standing near the doorway. "And the same goes for you, Zilong. We will forge something worthy of your skills."
Liu Bei suddenly felt a pang of regret. Had he conquered Nanzhong too early? Every veteran who had seen real combat knew the value of a blade that could slice through iron like paper. This was not cheap cabbage you could just grab anywhere. A weapon like that felt like an extension of your own arm. Perfectly balanced. Deadly sharp. Utterly reliable when your life depended on it.
But now, watching his brothers practically bouncing with excitement, Liu Bei's hand itched to grab one of those decorative swords hanging on the wall and chase them both around Chengdu just to vent his frustration.
And how could his Military Advisor just make promises like that? Talking in a meeting room was easy. Making those words real inside a hot, smoky iron workshop would take months of hard work.
Fortunately, Zhuge Liang did not see this as a burden. He seemed to enjoy the challenge.
"However," Zhuge Liang said, his analytical mind already shifting gears, "horseshoes are far more urgent than new weapons."
The reasoning was simple, and Liu Bei sighed in agreement.
"We still have too few good warhorses," Liu Bei admitted. "A horseshoe protects the hoof from cracking on hard ground. It keeps them going longer. Right now, that piece of metal is more valuable than ten thousand steel swords."
The Shu Han forces had recently pushed into Yongzhou and Liangzhou. Sure, but you could not just snap your fingers and create horse ranches overnight.
Liu Bei had been pondering the future generations' words about "selection breeding" and "conservation breeding." Selection breeding required skilled horse evaluators. Conservation breeding required veterinarians. Right now? They had neither.
No experts. No infrastructure. Not even enough grain to grow specialized feed. Beans and grains for proper horse nutrition? That was a dream for another day. The dream of a dominant heavy cavalry force still felt far away.
Thinking about horses brought back old memories. Two names surfaced from the depths of Liu Bei's mind.
Su Shuang. Zhang Shiping.
They had been good men. Honest traders who had helped him in his early days. But they were probably still up in Hebei somewhere, a thousand miles away. Too far to reach. Too distant to help.
Liu Bei looked down at his calloused hands. He wondered if they were still alive. He wanted to share a drink with them, to show them their investment had grown into an empire. But they were under Cao Cao's control now.
That thought led Liu Bei further back. He remembered the young, reckless men he used to run with in his hometown. The first brothers who had ridden out with him to fight the Yellow Turban rebels. If he ever made it back home, what would he find?
For a moment, the old warlord looked lost in the past.
Meanwhile, Zhuge Liang was as organized as ever.
From the moment the Light Screen appeared, he had been jotting notes in a small leather-bound notebook. Now he looked up from his latest entry.
"Xiaozhi," Zhuge Liang asked, "where is Jiang Wei right now?"
Zhang Fei jumped in before Fa Zheng could even open his mouth. "Kongming, you know... I was worried about Yongzhou and Liangzhou. Too dangerous out there. So we left the kid in Hanzhong. Xiaozhi has been supervising his studies."
Zhuge Liang nodded. He closed his notebook and handed it to Fa Zheng. "Good. Then I will trouble you to deliver these notes to Jiang Wei."
He paused, a hint of challenge in his eyes. "When we meet next year, I will test him on the contents."
Fa Zheng accepted the notebook with a curious look.
He flipped through a few pages and quickly realized this was not a manual or step-by-step guide. It was more like a strategist's personal journal, filled with observations about Tang Dynasty battles and tactics.
Zhuge Liang's handwriting was precise and elegant, each character placed with care.
But it was not just battlefield analysis.
There were also reflections on the beacon tower system, random thoughts that had occurred to Zhuge Liang while watching the Light Screen.
One entry caught Fa Zheng's attention:
"Like the snake of Changshan, coiled in the nine depths, striking from the nine heavens. To preserve oneself completely, one must first hide completely. To win utterly, one must strike without warning. This is the way of total victory without total sacrifice."
Fa Zheng blinked, rereading the line with growing admiration. Zhuge Liang had casually combined two unrelated passages from Sun Tzu's Art of War into a single insight.
The "snake of Changshan" came from the Nine Grounds chapter. It described a commander whose forces moved like a serpent: strike the head and the tail hits back, strike the tail and the head hits back, strike the middle and both ends close in. Fa Zheng had always thought this meant a long snake formation or a defensive pincer. But now, watching those interconnected beacon towers stretch across the landscape, he saw it differently. The whole system was one massive serpent. Each tower linked to the next. Information flowing instantly from end to end.
The "nine heavens and nine depths" came from the Forms chapter. A skilled defender hides so deep that nothing can reach him. A skilled attacker moves so fast and so suddenly that it is like striking from the sky itself.
Fa Zheng stared at Zhuge Liang's head. He was half-tempted to peek inside and see what kind of brain was in there. Was the man really this brilliant? Just casually connecting ancient philosophy to modern military tech like it was nothing?
Unbelievable.
This was good. More than good. Fa Zheng nodded to himself. He would study these notes carefully during the carriage ride back to Hanzhong.
And when he got there? Well, Pang Tong was busy in Longyou terrorizing the Qiang tribes. Fa Zheng figured he might as well take over the job of mentoring young Jiang Wei himself.
Someone had to make sure the boy survived Zhuge Liang's notoriously brutal exams.
With that settled, Zhuge Liang turned to Liu Bei and bowed. Then he rolled up the rough sketches on his desk and stood up, ready to leave.
He had work to do. The blacksmith's workshop was waiting. He needed to figure out the finer points of steel production. He had to collaborate with the master craftsmen on solving the iron nail problem. And oh yes, there was also that "telescope" the future generations had mentioned. He should probably check on the glass workshop too while he was at it.
Zhuge Liang paused at the door and glanced back at Liu Ba. "Zichu, coming?"
Liu Ba did not hesitate. He bowed quickly to Liu Bei and followed Zhuge Liang out. The two of them moved with the energy of scholars who had just stumbled onto a whole new world of possibilities, their minds already racing ahead to the experiments waiting for them.
Liu Bei always felt a bit off after watching the Light Screen.
Like he had just woken from a dream that felt more real than reality itself. But he was getting used to it. The strange sensation was becoming familiar. Almost comfortable.
"Zilong," Liu Bei said, turning to Zhao Yun. "You will go north with Yide to secure Yongzhou and Liangzhou. Chengdu will be fine. Shuzhi and his men will hold the capital."
Sending Zhao Yun north had been planned for days. If they were only holding Hanzhong, having Zhang Fei, Wu Yi, and Wei Yan all there was overkill. But now they had Yong and Liang to manage. They needed to control the western deserts while preparing to strike into Guanzhong. Suddenly, three generals were not nearly enough.
Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang had reached the same conclusion without even saying a word. Before, stuck in the southern mountains with few horses and thin resources, Zhao Yun had only been able to show off his personal fighting skills.
His real talent as a cavalry commander had been wasted.
But now? Now they were in Yongzhou and Liangzhou. The plains were open. It was time to let Zhao Yun loose.
Zhao Yun bowed deeply and accepted the order with his usual quiet dignity. The other officials scattered to their duties. The Chengdu office, buzzing with excitement moments before, returned to its normal rhythm of paperwork and meetings.
Liu Bei walked out to the veranda and looked up at the sky. His heart beat faster. Once they secured Guanzhong, the day he faced Cao Cao on the open field might not be far off.
"The people's hearts..." he murmured.
From the academy behind the office, he could hear students reciting their lessons. Their voices carried on the breeze. A steady, comforting rhythm. Order and learning.
Who would have thought that ordinary people could hold so much power?
---
"The people's hearts are truly useful."
Sima Yi found himself repeating Liu Bei's words, though his tone was more analytical than emotional.
He had expected the Nanzhong campaign to be a messy affair. The Bandun tribes had only primitive weapons, but they knew the mountains and forests like the backs of their hands. They could move through dense jungle and scale steep ridges with an ease that made northern soldiers look clumsy. Worse, the region was famous for its miasma, those poisonous vapors that every northerner feared.
When he had joined Liu Bei's southern expedition, Sima Yi had quietly accepted that he might die. If enemy blades didn't get him, disease probably would.
Instead, he found himself watching a style of leadership completely different from Cao Cao's, but just as effective.
Every time they entered a new region, local tribal leaders would come to Liu Bei's camp. They would sit together, drink tea, and chat like old friends. Liu Bei never asked Sima Yi to leave, but the conversations themselves seemed painfully dull.
How had the harvest been last year? Was there enough grain in storage? How much land had been cleared? How many children had been born?
At first, Sima Yi suspected these questions hid some deeper meaning. He listened carefully for hidden intentions. It took him several days to realize that Liu Bei was genuinely asking about harvests, grain, and children.
This man actually cares about this stuff, Sima Yi thought. How exhausting.
Afterward, the conversation always turned to trade routes.
Sima Yi recognized the proposal immediately. He had read enough historical records to identify it as the old Southwest Barbarian Route. Even so, he remained skeptical. Could a few conversations and promises of commerce truly win people's loyalty?
Then he saw the other side of Liu Bei's kindness.
When they reached Zangke, Liu Bei didn't even bother entering the county seat. Instead, he took Wu Yi and Zhang Ni and went into the mountains. Soon, the jungle filled with shouts and the sounds of fighting. Some time later, Liu Bei came back at a leisurely pace, carrying two severed heads like he had just been out for a walk.
From that day on, Sima Yi adjusted his view of Liu Bei's methods. He concluded that kindness and decapitation were not opposites.
As the campaign went on, he slowly realized just how many tribes had already been won over. They provided information willingly, guided the army through unfamiliar terrain, and some even asked to serve as front-line troops.
They are volunteering to die for him, Sima Yi noted. And they seem happy about it. What is wrong with these people?
Throughout it all, Sima Yi kept comparing Liu Bei to the Cao Cao he remembered.
Cao Cao ruled through sheer force of personality. He walked into a room and took it over. His ambition was obvious, and even his anger seemed calculated.
Liu Bei, on the other hand, had somehow become a local.
He talked about farming with Han settlers. He complained about bad harvests with tribal chiefs. He listened patiently to disputes over land and livestock. Yet people gathered around him naturally.
This was not an act. Liu Bei taught people how to farm properly, how to make better tools, and how to use insect powder. He also told them not to eat spoiled meat or drink dirty water. Sima Yi once watched him whip a tribesman who insisted on drinking river water because he had done it his whole life.
A few days later, that same tribesman looked at Liu Bei with admiration bordering on worship.
Sima Yi found the whole thing confusing.
I have studied strategy my whole life, he thought. And this man wins wars by asking about grain and handing out insect powder. What have I been doing?
Then he remembered an old saying.
In the style of Emperor Gaozu.
Liu Bang, the founder of the Han, had been known for his ability to win loyalty through genuine concern rather than fear. Watching Liu Bei, Sima Yi finally understood why people made that comparison.
Then another thought hit him.
Liu Bei had left Nanzhong after exactly three months. Not a day more. Not a day less. The timing was too precise to be random.
He planned this.
Sima Yi had watched Liu Bei for months. He had seen him sit on the dirt floor with tribal chiefs, complaining about bad harvests. He had seen him eat the same rough food as the soldiers. He had seen him listen to farmers' petty problems and settle their disputes like a village elder.
None of it was an act. Sima Yi was sure of that. Liu Bei genuinely cared about these people.
But this? This was calculation. Cold and deliberate.
He knew exactly how long this campaign would take. He knew when he needed to be back.
Sima Yi's curiosity burned. What was waiting for him in Chengdu? What was so important that Liu Bei had timed his whole campaign around it?
He had heard whispers. Strange rumors about something happening in the capital. Something only a few people were allowed to see. Every time Sima Yi got close to the truth, the subject changed. The officers went quiet.
He was not trusted yet.
Not yet. But soon.
If he wanted to get closer to that secret, he needed to prove himself first. No shortcuts. No schemes. Just work.
Fine. I can wait.
For now, he brushed the dust off the roster Liu Bei had given him. He would do this job well, earn credit, and make himself essential.
The Sima family had served the Han for generations. Now it was time to pay that debt. If being a loyal minister was the way back to the Central Plains, then so be it.
Sima Yi would become such a model of loyalty that no one would ever doubt him.