After receiving firm affirmation, Li Shimin's mood lifted visibly.
Since it was a flourishing Tang, since it was a mighty Tang, then it naturally deserved a monumental work worthy of such an empire.
Compared to the early Tang's overflowing martial valor, Li Shimin had long hoped to establish achievements in civil governance as well.
Later generations might speak of this era with one general star after another, one war god after another. It sounded glorious, but when such titles became excessive, they lost their edge.
In contrast, he felt deep yearning for the age of the flourishing Tang, for the era of the Poetry Immortal, the Poetry Sage, and their peers.
Yet those successors were still decades away.
Even more so, the birthplace of Li Bai, the city of Suiye, had not yet been conquered.
But at this moment, Li Shimin suddenly felt a sense of clarity wash over him.
Why must one rely on a Poetry Immortal to leave one's name through literature?
This towering, resplendent Great Tang itself was the finest poem.
With this lingering knot in his heart untied, Li Shimin felt refreshed in both body and spirit.
The current Zhenguan era must not only compile history, but also compile books, and do so on a grand scale.
He intended to seal this magnificent tapestry of early Tang entirely within books, to leave it for future generations so they might behold the splendor of a flourishing age.
When Ma Zhou first encountered the light screen, his mind and spirit were shaken to the core.
Yet the light screen offered no time for adjustment. He could only force himself to accept it temporarily, then struggle to discern its meaning.
Physician Sun had already spoken plainly. This auspicious sign was merely idle historical discussion by young people from a thousand years later. If they spoke of dynasties he had never heard of, then those must have risen after Tang's fall.
Speaking so openly of what happened after Tang's demise in the presence of the emperor terrified Ma Zhou, who had only just entered officialdom. Cold sweat poured from him like rain.
Yet when His Majesty heard such words, he merely snorted lightly in displeasure and did not refute them.
Seeing this reaction, and noting that the chancellors and ministers all appeared accustomed and unperturbed, Ma Zhou could only force himself to stop thinking about whether such statements were reasonable.
Before he could fully digest the implications of Tang's eventual fall, his attention was drawn to the mention of compiling encyclopedic works.
As a man who had changed his fate through study and risen via the examinations, Ma Zhou harbored genuine affection for books.
Thus, when he saw the mention of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, his brow furrowed.
"Half compiled and half destroyed. How can such a work be called authorship?"
Li Shimin offered no comment.
Sun Simiao coughed lightly and spoke with careful consideration.
"The dynasty that compiled the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries was established after an eastern alien people entered the Central Plains."
With a single sentence, Ma Zhou fell silent again, reminded of the chaos of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties.
Starving corpses filled the roads. Refugees cried across the land. The people endured endless suffering.
Ma Zhou's earlier excitement vanished completely, replaced by tightly knit brows.
Li Shimin's expression also stiffened, for he had seen Wei Wendi's words.
"I know well the matters of Shun and Yu."
When he had read historical records in the past, Li Shimin had once sighed at Cao Pi's undisguised ambition.
After all, abdication was merely a contest of military strength. There was no need to speak of Yao and Shun. Wang Mang, wedged between the two Han dynasties, had done the same.
Wang Mang claimed to receive the Golden Casket and accept Heaven's mandate, being "forced" to accept abdication, yet his ambition had been obvious to all.
Li Shimin had once mocked such self deceiving behavior.
Yet after raising troops and pacifying the realm himself, he realized something uncomfortable.
Strictly speaking, his own imperial throne had also come from abdication by the Retired Emperor.
In the end, Li Shimin could only fall silent.
From the side, Sun Simiao saw the confusion written plainly across Ma Zhou's face.
As for His Majesty, his expression bore four clear words.
No comment.
[Light Screen]
[The great epidemic of the twenty second year of Jian'an, due to its cold chasing nature, did not cause devastation in the south as severe as in the north.
However, the disease that spread from Ruxukou moved like the most precise assassin, claiming the life of Lu Su at the age of forty six.
With this, the sky over Jiangdong darkened.
Lu Su was perhaps the most outstanding statesman Jiangdong produced during the late Han.
This man, recorded in history as upright and generous, was the first advocate of the Sun Liu alliance and its true executor.
He persuaded Sun Quan to lend Jing Province to Liu Bei so they could jointly guard the Yangtze, shocking Cao Cao upon hearing it.
After Liu Bei seized Yizhou, Lu Su went alone to the meeting, deployed troops in Jing Province, and forced the conclusion of the Xiang River agreement.
For modern people, world history is compulsory. One might not fully grasp the detailed history of the First and Second World Wars, but most understand their overall outlines.
This state of fighting without shattering alliances is the true condition of political allies.
More than a thousand years earlier, Lu Su wielded this principle effortlessly.
After Lu Su's death, he was buried in Yueyang. Later generations inscribed a couplet at his shrine.
Supporting the Han and illuminating Cao's treachery, his insight rivaled Xun Yu.
Serving Wu while cherishing the Han line, his heart matched that of the Marquis of Wu.
The horizontal inscription read.
Authority and grace carried far.
In the uploader's personal opinion, this couplet is the finest summary of Lu Su's life.
This Cross River General was not the obtuse figure portrayed in literary works. He clearly understood Jiangdong's shortcomings and, within limited resources, maximized Jiangdong's interests while always keeping the whole realm in sight and executing his strategy unwaveringly.
After Lu Su, Jiangdong never again produced a strategist capable of looking beyond regional interests to the entire realm.
At Hefei, Zhang Liao led his brave followers in a desperate strike, earning the title Zhang of Eight Hundred.
Sun Quan attacked Hefei repeatedly without success and could only gaze north toward Xuzhou and sigh. His ambition was worn away.
From Lu Su's death onward, Sun Quan could scarcely be called a ruler of grand vision. He resembled instead a political opportunist and rogue statesman.
Had Lu Su not met misfortune, he likely still could not have prevented Sun Quan and Lü Meng from plotting Jiangdong's course. Facing Hefei, the vast Jiangdong truly had no effective solution.
But Lu Su would never have chosen actions like humbling himself to surrender to Cao, betraying Guan Yu to curry favor.
As an ally, Liu Bei's military strength could be calculated. It was not abundant.
Guan Yu's northern campaign, flooding the Seven Armies and shaking the realm, was indeed peerless in achievement. Yet his limited troops, strained logistics, and Cao's three sided encirclement meant that further expansion of victory was nearly impossible.
Such an ally, scraping by from one meal to the next, posed little threat to Jiangdong. Instead, he was a tangible support, for his weaknesses and needs were laid bare.
Let Guan Yu hold Jing Province against Cao Cao's hundreds of thousands like a war god, while Jiangdong poured its full strength around Hefei to strike Shouchun, controlling the Huai River, and simultaneously restraining Guan Yu with grain supply.
This was far closer to the decision Lu Su would have made.
But history allows no what ifs.
Two years after Lu Su's death, Lü Meng carried out his self proclaimed brilliant plan, crossing the river in white clothes to ambush an ally, capturing and killing Guan Yu to offer him to Cao, earning the name of a petty man.
Emperor Zhaolie sought revenge, mobilizing the entire state without regard for consequence, seeking mutual destruction with his enemy. The fires of Yiling burned for eight hundred li, leaving eternal regret.
Heroes sighed in despair. Former in laws and allies were both gravely wounded, never again able to pose even the slightest threat to the north.
Few could have imagined that after the great epidemic of the twenty second year of Jian'an, the failure of Wu and Shu had already been sealed.
In the late Ming, the thinker Wang Fuzhi lamented upon reading this history.
Lu Su's death, Guan Yu's defeat, Cao Cao's fortune, and the Former Lord's solitude. Alas.]