"Whoa. This is my first time seeing a Taicang like this."
Zhang Fei wasn't particularly impressed by the so-called Heavenly Pivot itself, but the materials used to cast it caught his eye immediately.
"A million jin of red gold! This old lady's descendants won't be worrying about money for the next several lifetimes."
For once, Liu Bei nodded in agreement with his third brother. At the same time, an old story surfaced in his mind.
The legend of the First Emperor of Qin casting twelve giant bronze men after unifying the realm, each weighing a thousand shi, placed within the imperial palace to suppress the empire's fortune.
Whether the tale was true or false, and where those bronze men ultimately ended up, historians had argued for centuries. Liu Bei himself had always treated it as little more than folklore.
But now, looking at the glowing screen's explanation, one thing was clear.
Regardless of whether the Qin bronze men ever existed, the Tang dynasty's Heavenly Pivot Pillar was very real.
And that made Liu Bei deeply envious.
Back in Jingnan, he'd been so poor he could barely scrape together a meal. Only later, after sugar-making, papermaking, and Shu brocade spread under his rule, did things slowly improve.
Even now, when he boldly declared "We shall reclaim the Three Qins," Kongming's cold assessment still echoed in his ears:
With the current treasury, carrying out grand plans in Yong, Liang, and Guanzhong would be like pouring a cup of water on a raging fire.
Liu Bei had thought that the early Tang, during the Zhenguan era, must have been unimaginably wealthy. But compared to the descendants of that so-called "Li Erfeng Emperor," even Zhenguan prosperity amounted to little more than pocket change.
"Gather hundreds of billions from the various barbarians, and supplement it with gold and bronze seized from the people…"
Liu Bei shook his head, but a realization dawned on him.
So this is another perk of being the big brother.
Learned something new today.
Ma Chao, standing below, caught every change in his lord's expression. As a relative newcomer, remembering Liu Bei's generous promises and the vaguely hinted glorious future, hot blood rushed straight to his head.
"My lord, why envy them at all? The Qiang and Hu have copper and iron too! If that's still not enough, I, Ma Chao, am willing to lead elite troops west to Hexi!"
What do you mean, envy? And besides, Liu Bei already intended to bring the Qiang and Hu back under Han rule. How could he strip them of their resources?
His face darkened immediately.
"How are the Qiang not Han people? And gold and iron can't be eaten or drunk. What use are they?"
"Do not speak of this again, Mengqi. If I hear it once more, I will not spare you."
Ma Chao immediately bowed in apology, not daring to stop.
Liu Bei waved a hand and softened his tone.
"Still, your loyalty is commendable. When the day comes to march out of Tong Pass, I will surely appoint you vanguard of the three armies."
Fear turned into joy on the spot.
The moment those words left his mouth, Zhang Fei felt sour. He jumped up at once.
"Big brother, I want to be vanguard too!"
Liu Bei didn't even look at him.
"This matter is not permitted."
A few days earlier, Kongming had said it plainly: Yide and Mengqi were both rough men with hidden finesse. But send them out together, and only the roughness remained.
The more Liu Bei thought about it, the more reasonable it sounded. So he refused without hesitation.
Zhang Fei plopped back down, puffing like an angry bull.
They always say you beat a man with a stick, then give him a date afterward.
I, Zhang Fei, have eaten way more sticks than Ma Chao ever has!
So why does only Ma Chao get the date this time?
Kongming chuckled, tapping the table to draw his attention.
"When we march out of Tong Pass, will there be only one army?"
Zhang Fei's eyes lit up instantly.
Still the strategist. Still the strategist.
Beside Kongming, Lu Su had already listened to Pang Tong's explanation and finally pieced it together with the map hanging behind them. Awed and astonished, he offered his judgment.
"If the Western Regions are to be governed long-term, military garrisons are indispensable."
"Orders that change by morning and evening damage imperial authority and harm the Western Regions' faith in Han."
Seeing Pang Tong nod in agreement, Lu Su casually lowered his voice.
"When do you plan to strike Cao?"
Pang Tong looked at him steadily for a moment, then broke into a grin.
"Zijing also wishes to help the Left General scheme for the Central Plains?"
Lu Su was left speechless. In the end, he could only shake his head with faint regret.
Pang Tong merely smiled without elaborating. What he'd told Lu Su so far was only Sui-Tang history. Once Lu Su saw things like "Crossing the River in White," Zhang Liao's eight hundred tiger guards, or that slippery opportunist repeatedly accepting royal titles…
Pang Tong had confidence in him.
Still, he added one line.
"At the latest, the campaign against Cao will begin next year."
That single sentence made Lu Su itch all over inside.
[Lightscreen]
[When we look back at history today, we often ask: What was the meaning of all this?
Take Wu Zetian's Hall of Myriad Forms. It was a wooden structure built strictly according to Confucian ritual principles, the largest of its kind in world history, ancient or modern, with immense cultural and architectural significance.
So what was the point of the Heavenly Pivot Pillar?
It didn't truly "stabilize the axis of the realm," "nor did it really make the surrounding tribes think twice."
Its only real function was probably this: when Li Longji inherited a battered empire, he could melt the pillar down and use it as the first chunk of startup capital to rebuild a golden age. Profit, right ??
While we're at it, let's talk about the Mingtang.
"Mingtang" is a conceptual name, meaning "Hall of Illuminating Governance." Plans to build one already existed when the Sui dynasty was founded, but after settling the capital at Daxing (Chang'an), the idea was quietly dropped.
Only after Li Zhi kicked the bucket and the old lady seized full control did the plan truly restart, and fast. Five years after Li Zhi's death, it was completed, named the Hall of Myriad Forms. After the Zhou dynasty was proclaimed, Wu Zetian basically camped there watching "Divine Palace Grand Music" every day.
A giant bronze pillar like the Heavenly Pivot could only please the old lady for a while. By the next year, she was already bored of looking at it. This time, she didn't even need the Wu clan to step in. she had already figured out how to keep herself extravagantly supplied."
On New Year's Day that year, she happily bestowed upon herself a new title:
"Compassionate, Transcending the Ancients, Golden Wheel, Sacred and Divine Emperor."
And while she was at it, declared a general amnesty.
Then she personally took the field to manufacture auspicious omens.
First, she closed the doors of the Hall of Myriad Forms and held a Buddhist assembly. Secretly, she ordered attendants to lead in a cow and slaughter it, using the blood to paint a sixty-meter-long Buddha image on the ground.
After that, guards were ordered to dig up a Buddha statue that had already been buried there in advance. Then she proclaimed to the realm:
"I was so absorbed in Buddhist teachings that, without realizing it, I drew blood from my beloved Xue Huaiyi to paint a Buddha image. Who would have thought this blood Buddha moved Heaven, causing a Buddha to emerge from the earth? Isn't that miraculous?"
No one believed a word of it.
But that didn't matter.
The unfortunate part of this Buddhist assembly was that Wu Zetian noticed a handsome imperial physician named Shen Nan. Whether Shen Nan wanted to or not, he was summoned daily to "discuss medical principles."
A neglected Xue Huaiyi was furious.
I busted my ass raising money for you and building Paradise, he fumed. If you're heartless, don't blame me for being unjust. I'll burn Paradise to the ground!
After the Hall of Myriad Forms was completed, Wu Zetian had already begun contemplating "proclaiming the throne through wonders." First, she built a colossal Buddha statue north of the Mingtang, so massive that dozens of people could stand within its hollow interior. Then, using that statue as a core, she built Paradise around it.
This became her personal place for Buddhist contemplation and the tallest wooden structure in world history.
The cost? One word: astronomical.
That was why, when building the Heavenly Pivot, they squeezed money from foreign tribes on one side and confiscated bronze vessels from the populace on the other. The treasury was so empty horses could gallop through it.
Xue Huaiyi, emboldened by past favor, was reckless. He said he'd do it and immediately did it. Unfortunately for everyone, there was a strong wind that day. The fire spread fast and burned the Mingtang as well, leaving the old lady covered in soot.
Terrified, Xue Huaiyi rushed to confess.
To his delight, the emperor seemed indulgent as ever. She comforted him gently and even entrusted him with restoring both halls.
In truth, she was furious.
She merely planned to squeeze every last drop of value out of him. After all, with the treasury empty, men like Xue Huaiyi were still useful for extorting funds.
And indeed, once the reconstruction funds were nearly gathered, Wu Zetian summoned him into the palace.
Then ordered the guards to beat him to death.
She also issued a special order, saying she was old and could not bear the sight of blood.
The guards asked, then how should the body be handled?
She smiled.
"Burn it. Suppress it beneath the pagoda at White Horse Temple."
Afterward, to wash away the bad luck, Wu Zetian revised her title again:
Golden Wheel, Great Sage Emperor.
She also changed the era name to Tiancé Wansui and once more proclaimed a general amnesty.
By the end of the year, still wanting to forget the unpleasantness, she set out with full imperial procession to Mount Song.
One purpose only: the Fengshan sacrifice.
She became the only emperor in history to perform Fengshan twice, and Mount Song became the only mountain besides Tai to host it.
And since Fengshan had been performed, with criminals eagerly watching, Wu Zetian naturally declared yet another general amnesty. To commemorate the occasion, she changed the era name again: Wansui Dengfeng.
Three months later, the rebuilt Mingtang was completed. She found the name "Hall of Myriad Forms" inauspicious and casually renamed it Tongtian Palace.
To commemorate that, she changed the era name yet again: Wansui Tongtian.
And once more, a general amnesty.
Three era-name changes. Three amnesties. All within half a year.
This was Wu Zetian's "Empire Reaching Heaven."]
Even after swallowing the bitter pill.
Even after bracing himself mentally.
Even with Empress Zhangsun beside him.
Li Shimin still trembled with rage, beard shaking as he roared:
"Absurd!"
"With amnesties like this, prisons emptied again and again, how do you pacify the people?"
"Criminals run rampant through the countryside unpunished, and you call this a state?!"
Empress Zhangsun smiled bitterly. She could imagine it clearly.
For common villagers, law was the only thing they could rely on.
If the bandits who abused them kept getting released after three consecutive amnesties, how could their hearts not collapse?
She remembered something her husband once said when praising a later Li Shimin for being cautious with amnesties:
"A ruler grants amnesty to display heavenly grace. But to common folk, such grace is no different from a natural disaster."
"They do not see grace. They only see that those who killed their kin need not pay."
"The guilty know of grace, but when punishment never falls, they grow fearless. The Son of Heaven becomes an accomplice to evil."
With that comparison, and considering this female emperor lived barely a generation after Zhenguan, it was no wonder her husband reacted this way.
"There is no need for such anger," Empress Zhangsun said softly. "She can still be taught. Laws can still be amended. Future harm may yet be prevented."
Only then did Li Shimin slowly calm down and sit. He gazed at the screen's "special-effects restoration image" of Paradise and the Mingtang, then sighed.
"Without military might, it is all empty spectacle."
Du Ruhui sighed as well.
"The Left Treasury pours all its wealth into this, then squeezes the people again. Where do the frontier armies get their funds?"
"Our emperor won hundreds of battles, yet left only a single stele at the western extremity."
"This woman wins one battle and boasts it across the seas. How are soldiers to fight to the death?"
His words drew nods all around.
Everyone present had clawed their way through the chaos of Sui's collapse, fighting countless battles. Even men like Fang and Du sometimes stood beside the emperor on the field.
According to later history, within twenty short years they forged the foundations of Tang. Their achievements filled the annals, yet they never boasted.
As for this Wu Zhou empress—
Did she annihilate Tibet? Or completely wipe out the Western Turks?
The hall was filled with a sense of absurdity.
"And Heaven… letting a woman set such an example. No wonder Buddhism later brewed disaster."
Fang Xuanling muttered.
At this point, he finally understood.
What this empress did was basically—
Imagine His Majesty suddenly going mad, setting up a stage in the Taiji Hall, inviting performers, dragging in a cow to draw Laozi's portrait in blood, claiming it was painted from a beloved concubine's veins, then digging a statue out of the ground and shouting: Heavenly omen! Let's change the era name and grant amnesty!
Just thinking about it made Fang Xuanling tired.
In the end, he could only sigh silently.
Old Fang really lived in a good era… oh, right. Absolutely never marry into the imperial family.
Beside Li Shimin, Sun Simiao shook his head in disdain. He now knew Buddhism was no different from rebellious Daoists: no divinity, no healing, no benefit to the people.
Next to him, Yan Lide's eyes shone brightly. He eagerly began sketching, only to quickly realize the difficulty: painting without structural reference made precision impossible.
Unless… I try my brother's method?
According to his brother, under Physician Sun's supervision he had drawn organs, bones, even corpses. Only when Sun sought to study blood circulation did things stall, giving Yan Liben time to organize his techniques.
The core principle was simple:
Draw the bones first, then the flesh. Only then does the spirit emerge.
For Yan Liben, a master of architecture, this translated easily.
Beams and rafters were the bones of palaces.
Sketching the skeletal framework of these two peerless halls was difficult, but far better than stiff copying.
As he drew, Yan Lide couldn't help glancing at his brother.
In painting… he really does surpass me.
"Proclaiming the throne through wonders?"
Kongming fell silent, then considered it carefully.
Strangely enough, it made some sense.
Like the Xiping Stone Classics that haunted his dreams.
In the sixth year of Guanghe, Emperor Ling adopted Cai Yong's proposal to collate the Confucian classics. The Seven Classics were carved into forty-six stone steles and erected outside the Imperial Academy.
The realm was shaken. Scholars from all thirteen provinces flocked to Luoyang to view and copy them. Since they were collated by great scholars of the academy, with not a single erroneous character, people called them the "One-Character Stone Classics."
After watching the glowing screen for so long, Kongming had learned to think beyond rigid frames.
Had there been no age of chaos, these steles alone could have elevated Han scholarship to new heights.
A true wonder.
But—
How many of those forty-six steles of Luoyang still exist today?
So Kongming picked up his brush and wrote:
Civil and martial governance as the core. Wonders as support. Power that awes the four seas may illuminate a thousand ages.
But in his view, a true wonder was not Wu Zhou's Paradise and Mingtang.
Qin built Dujiangyan, benefiting a thousand generations.
Han hung the Chanyu's head, cowing the barbarians.
The Champion Marquis charged afar, blazing through Han history.
Mount Yanran bore carved merit, mourned by later ages.
These were wonders that truly served the state.