Li Shimin squinted at the signature on the digital painting.
Was this really Zhuge Liang? That had to be a joke.
The Tang Emperor's brain immediately switched into strategy mode. He processed the impossible situation faster than anyone could say historical inaccuracy.
"Wait, did they capture Xiahou Yuan in Yongzhou and Liangzhou instead of Hanzhong?" Li Shimin muttered. "This timeline is completely messed up."
Beside him, Chancellor Fang Xuanling was already calculating the date. The man was practically a walking abacus. He had the answer ready before anyone else could even open their mouth.
"That would be the seventeenth year of the Jian'an era," Fang Xuanling said. "That was the same year Cao Cao led four hundred thousand troops south to attack Sun Quan at Ruxu Port. It ended in a complete disaster. He failed miserably."
That was enough to make Li Shimin's thoughts race.
His memory was practically impossible to shake. If he remembered the Records of the Three Kingdoms correctly, Liu Bei should have been stuck in Yizhou at this point, buried under endless logistical problems and administrative work.
Yet the Light Screen had just shown something completely different.
In this strange alternate reality, Liu Bei had somehow marched north. He had fought Cao Cao's vanguard in a brutal campaign across Yongzhou and Liangzhou, defeated them, and then laid siege to Chang'an before taking the ancient capital for himself.
Li Shimin immediately understood how ridiculous that achievement was.
Without controlling Tong Pass, that nearly impossible fortress, Liu Bei should never have been able to secure the Guanzhong region. If his borders were not safe, how could someone as cautious and anxious as Zhuge Liang possibly find the time to sit around painting cityscapes at night?
The man had enough worries without adding an art hobby to the list.
In this timeline, Cao Cao controlled the Central Plains, Liu Bei had secured Guanzhong, and the Jiangdong warlords had been reduced to little more than background players. The entire geopolitical situation looked nothing like the history Li Shimin knew.
Honestly, Cao Cao's army was probably surviving on borrowed time.
After all, Liu Bei's forces were being guided by Zhuge Liang himself. The man understood the entire Chinese continent as if he had a map permanently installed in his head. While everyone else was still trying to figure out the rules of checkers, he was already playing four-dimensional chess.
But as impressive as the military situation was, Li Shimin found himself far more curious about something else.
What were the people around Zhuge Liang like in this alternate reality?
Were they more interesting and more capable? Did they have better personalities?
More importantly, did they have better facial hair?
Li Shimin made a mental note to investigate everything the next time the Light Screen appeared. He would question the future generations thoroughly. No detail would be overlooked.
Unfortunately, the Light Screen had already gone dark.
Li Shimin took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. No matter how badly he wanted answers, he would have to wait another three months.
He had to wait three whole months.
That was a ridiculous amount of time to leave someone with this many questions.
For now, he had no choice but to focus on the immediate crisis. The Tang Dynasty was already standing dangerously close to war.
Then, as he thought about the painting again, a sudden thrill ran through him.
Liu Bei and his generals stood proudly on the walls of Chang'an, looking down at the city they had conquered. The sight stirred something deep inside Li Shimin's chest.
That was the kind of achievement that made a man want to accomplish something even greater.
If Zhuge Liang could create such a completely different future in another world, then perhaps the upcoming Tang campaign against Tuyuhun could become something truly remarkable.
This would not be merely a successful campaign. It could become something legendary.
The Light Screen finally faded away. The first people to leave the royal pavilion were the Yan brothers.
Well, technically, only Yan Lide was in a hurry.
The Minister of Works rolled up his architectural sketches, and the paper crackled loudly in his hands. He gave Li Shimin a quick and distracted bow before he rushed out of the room.
A thousand engineering ideas were already spinning through his mind. He had not even stepped out of Ganlu Pavilion, yet he was already planning an enormous excavation project.
He checked off the idea of a giant crater.
He checked off the idea of a simulated lake.
He definitely checked off the idea of an artificial riverbed.
How many laborers would he need? Where would the excavation begin? How much manpower could the imperial treasury afford?
Building the mechanical water pressure pump was the easy part. The real headache was finding the right materials. Which metals and woods could provide the best combination of strength, durability, and low cost?
That was the real challenge.
For a moment, Yan Lide wondered whether he should return home and burn all his preliminary blueprints for the royal tombs. Compared to hydraulic engineering, those designs suddenly felt like a complete waste of his talent.
Hydraulic engineering was clearly where the future was.
Meanwhile, his younger brother Yan Liben decided to slip away as well. He followed his brother's exit strategy almost perfectly.
The reason was simple. Ganlu Pavilion currently contained a dangerous threat.
Dr. Sun Simiao was standing right there.
Under normal circumstances, the imperial doctor was a pleasant man. Unfortunately, Yan Liben had accidentally made eye contact with him earlier. Ever since then, a strange chill had been crawling up his spine.
Yan Liben trusted his instincts. He planned to follow his brother out of the palace entirely.
Perhaps he could help with the engineering project and earn a few political points along the way. Or maybe he could gather some friends and ride beyond Chang'an's walls for a few cups of wine.
Either option was better than spending his holiday beside a man who enjoyed cutting open corpses.
He absolutely refused to do that.
"Your Majesty must strictly follow your dietary restrictions."
Sun Simiao delivered another rapid-fire medical warning, bowed, and immediately left the room. The elderly doctor even quickened his pace as he chased after the fleeing artist.
"Director Yan! Director Yan, please wait! Why not join me for a lovely cup of tea?"
The doctor started running.
"Director Yan, why are you running? Please, wait for me!"
Li Shimin watched the chaotic departure with an expression caught somewhere between amusement and exhaustion.
The King of Medicine was relentless when it came to medical research. Now that he understood the dangers of infectious diseases, nobody needed to motivate him anymore.
If anything, Li Shimin needed to assign guards to prevent the old doctor from recklessly exposing himself to a deadly virus in the name of science.
The man had absolutely no sense of self-preservation.
As for practical assistance, Li Shimin already had a plan.
The future generations had mentioned an ancient Roman doctor named Galen. Apparently, the man had used monkeys to test medical theories.
If a foreign empire could do it, then the Tang Dynasty could obviously do it better.
That was just common sense.
The Jiannan Circuit was full of wild monkeys. The Emperor could issue a decree and send soldiers to capture hundreds of them.
That solved the problem.
Once that matter was settled, Li Shimin turned toward Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui. The two chief chancellors were bowing in perfect unison.
These three men had been through quite a lot together. They had survived rebellions and civil wars, and they had sat through enough awkward court banquets to last several lifetimes.
Li Shimin only needed one look at their faces, combined with everything he had learned from the Light Screen, to know exactly what they were thinking.
"You two want to go find the mathematician Li Chunfeng," Li Shimin said. He waved a hand. "Go and do it right now. Do not waste any time."
Li Shimin had a vague memory of Li Chunfeng. However, his thoughts kept returning to the unfortunate fate of Liu Zhuo.
Future generations praised Liu Zhuo as a mathematical genius. Back in the early Tang Dynasty, most scholars knew him by a much less flattering title.
They called him a madman.
Honestly, could anyone blame them?
During the Kaihuang era, Liu Zhuo was practically a nobody with no political connections to speak of. Yet he had walked straight into the Imperial Academy and verbally demolished the Sui Dynasty's greatest scholars in a public debate.
The humiliation was apparently too much for them to handle. The offended scholars joined forces, blacklisted him, and ruined his career out of pure spite.
That was very mature behavior.
Later, when the government asked for opinions on calendar reform, Liu Zhuo publicly criticized the Chief Astronomer, Zhang Zhouxuan.
The result was almost immediate. The moment Liu Zhuo finally received a minor government appointment, he was dismissed.
Again.
Most people would have taken the hint. Liu Zhuo apparently decided that giving up was not an option.
He shut himself away and single-handedly calculated the Huangji Calendar. Once he finished, he presented it to the Sui Emperor, hoping to prove his genius.
The mathematics was flawless. Officials praised the calendar highly. Yet the government ultimately adopted a completely different system.
Who was responsible for that competing calendar?
It was Zhang Zhouxuan, the exact same man Liu Zhuo had publicly insulted.
That was a spectacularly petty way to handle a disagreement.
After enduring one political beating after another, Liu Zhuo eventually watched the country descend into civil war. At that point, he finally gave up.
His spirit was broken. He closed his doors, refused visitors, and spent the rest of his life teaching classical literature.
Ironically, he died as a respected Confucian master instead of the mathematical genius he had always been.
Now, after hearing people a thousand years in the future openly praise Liu Zhuo's talent, Li Shimin felt a complicated knot forming in his chest.
He stood still for a moment.
Just as Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui reached the doors, the Emperor suddenly called out.
"You two must give Li Chunfeng a serious lecture," Li Shimin said. "Make sure he understands the importance of mathematics."
The meaning behind his words was perfectly clear. He wanted them to tell Li Chunfeng to stop wasting his extraordinary intellect on Daoist fortune-telling and mystical nonsense.
Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui understood immediately. They nodded in unison and left the room.
As Li Shimin watched them disappear, a brilliant idea suddenly occurred to him.
Mathematics was clearly a matter of national importance. Keeping it buried inside the Imperial Academy as a minor subject alongside poetry was a terrible mistake.
He needed to pull it out. He needed to establish an entirely independent government department. He needed to make sure the whole world understood its importance.
If he succeeded, scholars a thousand years in the future would look back in amazement. They would say that Emperor Wu of Han had established the Imperial Academy for classical learning, while Emperor Taizong of Tang had founded the Pavilion of Mathematics and laid the foundation for modern science.
The thought of that legacy made Li Shimin's blood run hot. He made the decision immediately.
The remaining ministers started to leave in groups of two or three. The pavilion soon became a quiet storm of whispers as they frantically traded opinions about everything they had just seen.
The revelations from the Light Screen had been completely earth-shattering, especially the strange political developments in the ancient Roman Empire. If these elite politicians did not find a secluded corner to gossip and process their shock, they might actually explode.
Li Shimin understood them completely.
Unfortunately, one awkward problem still remained in the room.
That problem was Hou Junji.
"Waaaaaa! Uwaa, hiks, hiks... Your Majesty!" Hou Junji dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his face. "This subject swears to open the maritime trade routes for the Great Tang! If I fail, I will drown myself in the deepest ocean I can find!"
Li Shimin pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Old Hou, what good would your death do me?" he snapped. "If you encounter a deadly threat at sea, your first priority is to survive."
"Huooooh... Your Majesty..." Hou Junji's eyes went wide and watery. "Thank you. You still care about this old soldier."
Li Shimin stared at him.
"Make sure you bring the geographical intelligence safely back to Chang'an first," he said, his voice chillingly casual. "Once you have handed over the maps, you can die on the front lines all you want. It will not be too late."
Hou Junji's face went blank.
"Eh?"
He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. The confusion on his face slowly melted into something else. Determination. Or maybe just a desperate need to escape the room.
"I am sure, Your Majesty. Thank you for your trust. This old Hou will get the job done."
Li Shimin waved a hand.
"Go. Be safe. And stop crying. You are a grown man, Old Hou."
Hou Junji slowly climbed to his feet, gave a stiff bow, and stumbled out of the room like a man whose soul had just been violently ripped from his body.
Li Shimin watched him go.
A little twinge of guilt flickered in his chest.
Then he remembered that in the original timeline, he had been forced to publicly execute Hou Junji for treason. Compared to literal beheading, a little verbal humiliation was practically an act of mercy.
Li Shimin immediately felt much better about himself, and the guilt disappeared.
Li Shimin finally turned toward the last person remaining in the room. Ma Zhou, the top scholar, was still standing in place as though someone had forgotten to tell him the meeting was over.
At this point, Ma Zhou's mind was barely functioning.
Within a few impossibly eventful hours, he had passed the national civil service examination, paraded through Chang'an to the cheers of the crowds, received a private audience with the Emperor, witnessed a magical glowing box from the future, and learned the secrets of a thousand years of history.
Now, as he looked at the Tang Emperor, Ma Zhou genuinely wondered whether he was trapped in a vivid hallucination. Had he passed out at a tavern and dreamed the whole thing?
There was simply no reasonable way to process the insanity of the day.
Li Shimin smiled warmly. The Emperor was a master of psychological manipulation, and he knew exactly how to use that advantage.
He walked over and personally took the stunned scholar by the arm. This young man was destined to become one of the legendary ministers of the Zhenguan era, so Li Shimin raised his free hand in a grand and sweeping gesture.
"Ma Zhou, do you wish to understand the true potential of the glorious Zhenguan Era?" Li Shimin asked. "Do you wish to know how history will record your name? Do you wish to comprehend the hidden forces that determine the rise and fall of empires?"
The rapid-fire questions completely overloaded Ma Zhou's remaining brain cells, and he became unable to form a single coherent thought.
Without missing a beat, Li Shimin introduced a brand new phrase he had borrowed from the Light Screen.
"The current Zhenguan era represents a huge geopolitical transformation, a profound change unseen in five thousand years of Chinese history," Li Shimin declared. "The empire urgently needs extraordinary geniuses to step into this chaos. I need men who can seize this momentum and demonstrate their brilliance."
The Emperor leaned closer, and his eyes burned with intensity.
"Ma Zhou, are you ready to become the genius who defines my era?"
---
In another era, the mood was much heavier.
Zhuge Liang smiled lightly and brushed off the future generations' criticism of his painting. The tragic story of the mathematician Liu Zhuo affected him far more, and he let out a long and heavy sigh.
"The Sui Dynasty had Liu Zhuo, and the Han Dynasty had Liu Hong," he said. "Both were brilliant men, and both became tragic victims of a chaotic age."
His melancholy words caught everyone's attention. Liu Bei rubbed his chin and looked uncertain.
"Kongming, are you talking about Liu Hong, courtesy name Yuanzhuo, from Changshan?"
Zhuge Liang nodded firmly and turned toward the side of the room.
"Jian Yong, please step forward."
Liu Bei watched in surprise as Jian Yong stepped forward. The diplomat wore a complicated expression while he carefully pushed a small and heavy wooden chest across the floor.
He opened the latch and lifted the lid. Inside, a collection of carefully bound bamboo scrolls was packed tightly together. On top rested a very thin and delicate booklet.
Liu Bei read the title aloud, and his expression twisted into confusion.
"Is this the Qianxiang Calendar?"
Zhuge Liang did not bother with suspense. He explained immediately.
"After we conquered Chang'an, the local Inspector of the Capital Region handed over his private library for us to copy," Zhuge Liang said. "I asked Jian Yong to help with the work. About halfway through transcribing the archives, we discovered this."
Zhuge Liang pointed his feather fan at the booklet.
"The current Quarter Day Calendar contains serious calculation errors. Every educated scholar knows that. During Emperor Ling's reign, the famous scholar Cai Yong personally recommended Liu Hong to the throne. He hoped Liu Hong could create a flawless new calendar."
"Liu Hong isolated himself for years and devoted his life to mathematics. In the end, he produced this exact document. Compared to the old Quarter Day Calendar, this system is vastly superior in every respect. His mathematical genius completely surpasses my own. I could spend a lifetime studying his work and still never reach his level."
Liu Bei was immediately captivated.
"If this man was truly a living god of mathematics, why have I never even heard his name before today?"
Zhuge Liang sighed again. This time the sigh was even heavier.
"In the sixth year of the Zhongping era, Emperor Ling officially summoned Liu Hong to the capital. He intended to adopt the Qianxiang Calendar as the law of the land."
The moment Liu Bei heard that date, he understood.
The sixth year of the Zhongping era was 189 AD, one of the darkest years in Han Dynasty history. The imperial court was falling apart, and the country was sliding rapidly toward civil war.
Emperor Ling died suddenly and miserably. The young and powerless Emperor Shao was placed on the throne. General-in-Chief He Jin was assassinated in the palace gardens. The Ten Attendants were slaughtered in a bloody purge. Dong Zhuo marched his frontier army into the capital and seized control of the government.
Across the country, warlords raised their banners in open rebellion.
It was the moment the old world began to collapse and the age of chaos truly started.
Compared to emperors dying and cities burning, a mathematician being summoned to the capital meant absolutely nothing. Nobody cared. The revolutionary calendar reform was forgotten amid the ashes of the empire.
Now that Liu Bei understood the value of advanced mathematics, he could only sigh repeatedly. Zhuge Liang was absolutely right.
It did not matter if someone could calculate the movements of the stars. If they were born into an era where warlords were burning libraries to the ground, their genius might never have the chance to change anything.
However, Liu Bei was not a man who gave up easily. He quickly shook off his depression and raised his head.
"According to my intelligence network, Liu Hong later accepted a position as Governor of Shanyang Commandery," Liu Bei said. "If we dispatch an elite cavalry detachment to bring him here..."
Zhuge Liang raised a hand and stopped his lord before he could finish. He slowly shook his head, and his expression was filled with profound regret.
"When I was stationed in Chengdu, I read every mathematical text available in the province," Zhuge Liang said. "The masterpiece I discovered was an annotated copy of The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. The annotations were written by Liu Hong. I consider that brilliant man to be my unseen teacher."
Zhuge Liang paused, and his voice dropped slightly.
"After we entered Chang'an, I asked the local officials about his whereabouts. They informed me that Liu Hong had passed away two years ago."
Liu Bei stared at the small booklet inside the chest, and his shoulders sank slightly.
"Oh, the chaos," he whispered bitterly into the hushed room. "The absolute chaos of a broken era."