If Li Shimin just treated the Biography of the Curly-Bearded Guest as a fun story, he thought it was pretty charming. A good read. Entertaining.
As a work of fiction, excellent. As actual history? Complete nonsense.
"I'll admit it," he said with a grin. "It's a good story. Adventure, wandering heroes, a beautiful woman who runs away with the protagonist, a mysterious warrior who sails off to become a king. I can see why people enjoy it."
Then his expression changed.
"But this part about the Curly-Bearded Guest being some literary version of me? Hell no. That crossed a line. Complete nonsense."
In the story, Li Jing was a smooth romantic. Good-looking. Charming. Lived a life of adventure. Basically a movie star.
And the Curly-Bearded Guest? The guy walked into a tavern, slammed a severed head on the table, and sliced out the dead man's liver to eat as a snack.
Li Shimin gestured toward the palace doors.
"Illig Qaghan is living in luxury right here in the capital right now," he said. "When have I ever carved out his organs to go with my evening wine?"
He shook his head.
"Future generations really stretching things to fit their narrative."
The ministers nodded politely. Their eyes kept drifting to the curled tips of the Emperor's beard.
To be fair, they also thought about how Illig Qaghan was actually doing. The guy was twenty years older than Li Shimin. Yet the Emperor regularly made him dance at banquets. Other days, he lectured him like a misbehaving child. The man went from ruling the entire northern steppe to dancing for his dinner. He probably wished he was dead.
"This is clearly a case of later generations forcing evidence to fit a conclusion," Li Shimin continued. "They saw that I had a beard. They saw that the Guest had a beard. Then they declared the mystery solved."
"A very persuasive analysis, Your Majesty," Fang Xuanling said.
"Extremely persuasive," Du Ruhui added.
Li Shimin nodded, satisfied. Then a smile slowly returned to his face.
"That said, the description of the young Lord of Taiyuan was remarkably accurate."
The ministers immediately knew they were entering dangerous territory.
He leaned back, clearly pleased with himself.
"Arriving with an unfastened robe. Radiating a brilliant aura. Striking features. They captured my youth perfectly."
Several officials suddenly became fascinated by the architecture of Ganlu Hall.
"In particular, the part about the robe," Li Shimin said.
Fang Xuanling already regretted whatever was about to happen. "The robe?"
"The robe," Li Shimin repeated. "A high-quality fur lining was expensive. If you kept the robe completely closed, nobody could see it. Wearing it slightly open wasn't carelessness. It was style."
"It was showing off," Du Ruhui said.
Li Shimin pointed at him. "Exactly."
Du Ruhui blinked. "That wasn't a compliment, Your Majesty."
"But it was accurate."
The Emperor looked delighted by this distinction.
Below the throne, Fang Xuanling and Li Jing exchanged a tired smile. Moments like this always reminded them how unusual their ruler really was. Li Shimin had conquered the world while barely out of his teens.
Finished admiring his own historical fashion sense, the Emperor got serious.
"Good to know future generations remember my biggest regret," he said. "Conquering Goguryeo is huge. But to prepare for that, we need to secure the flank. The kingdoms of Silla and Baekje will be destroyed."
He remembered a previous broadcast. A future nation had claimed Goguryeo's heritage while stealing its culture. That nation came from Silla and Baekje's lands. He intended to fix that problem at the source.
Du Ruhui remembered that broadcast too. He also remembered the graphic depiction of a fictional Li Shimin losing an eye in battle. He kept a straight face while his brain raced.
And Your Majesty claims you don't hold grudges? he thought.
Nearby, Su Dingfang listened to the declaration of war and practically vibrated with excitement. He looked at Li Jing.
Old man, he thought, if I have to get down on my knees, I'll beg for an assignment. Deserts? Fine. Oceans? Fine. Just point me in a direction. I'll go there. I'll flatten them. I'll kick every single one of them in the face.
---
Far away in Chengdu, Liu Bei read the scrolling text in silence. Then he slapped his thigh and laughed.
"Now that is the spirit of wandering heroes."
Unlike most people in the room, Liu Bei felt qualified to comment.
After all, his own life had practically started as one of those stories. A young man with impossible ambitions. A sworn brotherhood formed over shared ideals. Years spent wandering from battlefield to battlefield while trying to build something greater than themselves.
The more Zhang Fei listened, the more familiar it sounded.
"Hold on," he shouted, his voice rattling the beams. "That sounds exactly like me and my two brothers!"
For a moment, Liu Bei didn't say anything.
Thirty years had passed since the days of the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Thirty years of victories and defeats. Thirty years of sleeping in borrowed homes, fleeing like stray dogs from Cao Cao's massive army, rebuilding after disasters, and refusing to give up.
Through all of it, Guan Yu had never left his side. Zhang Fei had followed him into every hopeless situation imaginable. Zhao Yun had protected his family through chaos and battle alike. And Zhuge Liang had abandoned the quiet life of a scholar to throw himself into the impossible task of saving a dying dynasty.
Liu Bei's gaze slowly swept across the room. A warm smile appeared on his face.
Then, to everyone's surprise, he stood and gave a deep bow.
The room immediately became uncomfortable.
"My lord?" Zhao Yun said.
"What are you doing, big brother?" Zhang Fei asked.
Even Zhuge Liang looked mildly alarmed.
Liu Bei straightened.
"I was simply thinking how fortunate I am."
His voice carried genuine emotion.
"Over the years, we've faced stronger armies, richer rivals, and more setbacks than I can count. Yet all of you stayed."
Pang Tong watched and barked out a laugh.
"Why so quiet, My Lord?" he teased. "Afraid we might ask for a bonus?"
Liu Bei had always been self-conscious about his lack of facial hair. He had spent the last few minutes envying the magnificent beard described in the story. He stroked his smooth chin and smiled.
"If you want something, Shiyuan, just say it."
Pang Tong had zero shame. A mischievous light danced in his eyes.
"I've served you loyally for years," he said. "But my biggest regret is never getting to drink your wedding wine."
The room went awkward.
Pang Tong had joined after Zhou Yu's death. He missed the lavish wedding banquet with Lady Sun in Gong'an entirely.
Bringing that up brought back memories of Lady Sun. The fiercely independent, sword-wielding princess. The marriage had been a terrifying geopolitical trap wrapped in silk.
Liu Bei cleared his throat nervously.
"Let's get back to the screen," he muttered, staring forward and refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
A few officials snickered.
Zhang Fei, oblivious as always, scratched his head. "Wait, what's wrong with wedding wine?"
No one answered him.
[Lightscreen]
[Forget the legends, the novels, and the gods. Li Jing's most important legacy might not have been a battlefield victory at all. It might have been the books he left behind.
According to old Tang records, after reaching the peak of military glory, Li Jing found himself in a dangerous position. He had conquered too many enemies, earned too much prestige, and become far too famous for his own comfort. Like any sensible veteran of Tang politics, he retreated into his estate and focused on writing.
And he wrote a lot. The Mirror of the Six Armies. Military Methods of Lord Wei. The Hidden Talisman Mechanism. The Jade Tent Classic. Plus treatises on archery, formations, strategy, logistics, and command. Enough to fill a small library.
But here's the brutal reality. Almost every single one is lost. Gone. Vanished. No one in our generation has ever read a single page written by Li Jing.
All that knowledge, all that experience, all that hard-won wisdom from a lifetime of deleting kingdoms... poof. Turned to ash somewhere along the way.
The reasons are practical.
First, Li Jing wasn't a wandering scholar trying to maximize readership. He was one of the most powerful men in the empire. His military writings weren't being copied and distributed across every county school. Access was restricted.
Second, the early Tang enjoyed a luxury most dynasties never had: winning streaks. The empire spent decades defeating rival kingdoms and expanding its borders. When your armies keep winning, steamrolling, stomping, and deleting weaker enemies, preserving advanced military theory tends to feel less urgent than fighting the next campaign.
Then the An Lushan Rebellion arrived and set the entire dynasty on fire.
Capitals fell. Palaces burned. Archives were looted. Emperors fled. In that kind of chaos, it's not just priceless manuscripts that can vanish forever. Even your wife might get snatched by others.
There is one book that survived, though. Li Weigong, Wang Jiang Nan, Gazing South of the River by Li Jing, Duke of Wei. It's still preserved in libraries today.
But it's not a pure strategy manual. It's a collection of poems about military divination. Weather signs, cloud patterns, strange omens. Useful for fortune-telling, less useful for learning how to delete kingdoms.
But wait, some military historians might say. What about Questions and Replies between Tang Taizong and Li Weigong?
This book was highly regarded during the Song Dynasty. It was officially made one of the Seven Military Classics, alongside Sun Tzu and Wu Qi.
But if you actually sit down and read it, you quickly realize it makes Li Jing look like a magical wizard and Li Shimin like a clueless student.
Take one famous passage. Li Shimin supposedly asks Li Jing to evaluate the arrangement of having Li Ji and Zhangsun Wuji jointly manage the government.
According to the book, Li Jing says Li Ji is loyal and trustworthy. Then he launches into a vicious attack on Zhangsun Wuji. He calls Zhangsun Wuji a jealous hypocrite. Blames him for forcing Yuchi Jingde into early retirement. Claims he's the sole reason Hou Junji turned to treason. Then insists he's only speaking these truths because the Emperor demanded honesty.
The Emperor then allegedly promises to keep the conversation secret.
And then Li Jing apparently goes home and writes the entire discussion down for future generations to read. Which is a bit like someone receiving classified information from the president and immediately publishing a memoir titled State Secrets I Was Definitely Not Supposed to Share.
Even if you dislike Zhangsun Wuji, most of these accusations don't hold up. Hou Junji's treason was Hou Junji's responsibility. Yuchi Jingde's retirement was his own choice. History is complicated. The book often pretends it isn't.
The political gossip is only the beginning.
The bigger problem is how the book makes Li Shimin look. In these conversations, Li Jing spends a lot of time explaining basic military ideas to the Emperor. Things like how to position troops, how to deceive the enemy, how to manage supplies. The basics.
The book basically implies that Li Shimin was learning Warfare 101 from his old general.
Here's the problem. Li Shimin wasn't some rookie prince fresh out of the academy.
By the time these conversations supposedly happened, he had already crushed Xue Rengao, Song Jingang, Liu Wuzhou, Wang Shichong, Dou Jiande, and a whole list of other warlords. He was one of the greatest battlefield commanders in Chinese history.
Reading this book is like watching Sun Tzu patiently explain warfare to Hannibal.
That's not teaching. That's insulting.
And the book doesn't stop there. It also takes policies and strategies that historians know came from Li Shimin and Wei Zheng, then quietly gives the credit to Li Jing instead.
One passage even has Li Shimin asking for the secret behind defeating Xiao Xian. Li Jing's answer? Trust your capable generals.
That's it. Trust them.
Here's why that's ridiculous. Li Shimin's administration produced one of the most loyal groups of commanders in Chinese history. Of the twenty-four heroes honored in Lingyan Pavilion, twenty-two died natural deaths while serving the Tang. Only two got themselves killed through treason.
For an empire built by military strongmen, that's an amazing record. Clearly, Li Shimin already knew how to trust his generals.
Then there's the logistics problem. The book acts like Li Jing had to explain to Li Shimin how to feed an army from enemy land. How to forage. How to manage long-distance supply lines.
But this isn't advanced stuff. Commanders had been doing this for centuries. Huo Qubing was raiding deep into Xiongnu territory long before the Tang even existed.
More importantly, Li Shimin had done it himself.
During the seventh year of Wude, when Illig Qaghan threatened the capital, Li Yuan panicked. He wanted to abandon Chang'an and move somewhere safer. Li Shimin said no. In his official response, he compared himself to Huo Qubing. He argued that he could handle the logistics and destroy the Turks himself.
That's not a man who needs a beginner's lesson on supply chains.
So what is Questions and Replies Between Emperor Taizong and Li Weigong?
Most likely, it's what happens when a later writer wants to write a military manual but also wants people to actually read it. Attaching the names of Li Shimin and Li Jing to your book is great marketing.
The problem is, the author didn't really understand either man very well.
The result is a book where Li Jing becomes an all-knowing military wizard, Li Shimin becomes an eager student, and Tang politics gets filtered through several generations of historical fan fiction.
As military literature, it's interesting. It contains genuine strategic insights. Some scholars argue it may be based on original drafts from the imperial archives.
But as evidence for what Li Jing and Li Shimin actually discussed? It's about as reliable as a random comment section on the internet.
So here's the irony. The books Li Jing actually wrote with his own hands, the ones that contained his real battlefield experience and hard-won wisdom... are lost. The book that bears his name and is studied by generations of military officers... is probably fake.
History can be cruel. Sometimes it's also ironic.]
Inside Ganlu Hall, the military officers felt genuine grief. Losing eight strategy guides written by one of history's greatest commanders? That wasn't a loss. That was a tragedy.
No one felt it more than Li Jing himself.
He'd wanted to write down his battlefield experience for years. After destroying the Eastern Turks, he'd actually drafted the opening chapters of The Mirror of the Six Armies.
He had imagined future generations studying his tactics, learning from his mistakes, maybe even arguing about his theories over tea.
Hearing that his work would be lost? That hit him hard.
He seriously considered carving the entire text onto stone tablets and sealing them in his own tomb. If paper couldn't survive, maybe rock could.
"General, you focus on writing the manuals," Li Shimin declared. "Leave the preservation to me. I'll make sure they survive."
The Emperor's mind was already spinning with ideas.
He remembered the future museum concept from an earlier broadcast. He mixed that with the grand New Year festival displays. A grand project started forming in his head.
He even reserved a prominent display area for Illig Qaghan. A thoroughly conquered enemy, properly exhibited, was the perfect testament to Tang supremacy.
Whether Illig Qaghan would appreciate being a living museum exhibit was a concern Li Shimin completely ignored.
While the Emperor planned architectural wonders, Zhangsun Wuji stared at the screen in horror.
His name was being dragged through the mud, and he hadn't even done anything yet.
"I swear, I've never been jealous of a capable official!" he protested, face pale. "Not once. Never. I've always been supportive. Ask anyone."
Li Jing immediately stepped forward to stop the rumor before it could spread further.
"Leaving aside the stupidity of writing down a state secret and then publishing it," he said dryly, "if Your Majesty ever asked for my honest assessment of a colleague, I would never respond with such venomous slander. I would smile, bow, and say something diplomatic like 'they are both fine men, Your Majesty.'"
Li Shimin waved his hand and smiled warmly.
"Don't worry about it, Wuji. This is clearly the work of an ignorant future scholar trying to fabricate drama to sell a fake book."
He turned to Li Jing.
"And I would never put you in that position, General. Asking a man who's trying to become invisible to suddenly become visible and attack the Prime Minister? That's not strategy. That's just cruel."
Li Shimin was a master of political psychology. Li Jing had just destroyed three kingdoms. He was actively trying to make himself invisible to avoid suspicion. Asking him to brutally critique the sitting Prime Minister would be like throwing him into a pit of vipers and asking him to dance.
The idea that Li Jing would jump into that pit, verbally destroy a colleague, and then publish a book about it was hilariously out of character.
So Li Shimin treated the whole segment as historical comedy. No harm, no foul. Just future generations being future generations.
Yuchi Jingde got angry hearing about his forced retirement. His face turned red. His hands clenched into fists.
"Who wrote this nonsense?" he growled.
Qin Qiong immediately grabbed his arm before he could do something impulsive, like challenge a dead author to a duel.
"We're the Emperor's trusted blades," Qin Qiong murmured. "Do our duty. Hold our positions. Ignore the noise."
Yuchi Jingde took a breath and slowly unclenched his fists.
At that moment, Qin Qiong desperately missed Cheng Zhijie.
During the rebellion years, Cheng had been a terrifying vanguard, holding the banner high and shattering enemy lines.
Now, in peacetime, he was equally good at governing. The Emperor frequently praised his versatility.
Yuchi Jingde had a temper like a powder keg. Qin Qiong knew that without constant supervision, that anger would eventually cause a massive disaster.
According to the screen's timeline, Yuchi Jingde's early retirement was an established historical fact. The exact details were fuzzy, but Qin Qiong would bet his own life that his friend's fiery temper was the primary cause.
He resolved to keep a much closer eye on the man.
Across the room, Li Ji was the only one smiling. The book might be a total fake, filled with bad takes and historical nonsense, but the fictional Li Jing had called him loyal and trustworthy. He considered that a massive win for his historical reputation.
"See?" he said quietly to himself. "Even fake history knows I'm reliable."
As for Li Jing, he finally relaxed when the broadcast called him an all-knowing wizard. The most dangerous political rumors were those built on a foundation of partial truth. A book filled from cover to cover with obvious absurdity? Completely harmless. People would read it and simply laugh.
He thought back to his early career. Years ago, he had specifically requested a transfer to the swampy southern front against Xiao Xian for one simple reason: standing next to Li Shimin on a northern battlefield made it impossible for anyone else to earn glory. Li Shimin had just finished crushing Wang Shichong's massive army. He didn't need help. He needed an audience.
The idea that the Emperor needed a tutor to explain basic military concepts was laughable. And clearly, Li Shimin agreed.
The Emperor looked at Li Jing, amused.
"A fictional dialogue between us, designed to teach basic strategy to the next generation," Li Shimin said. "There are worse ways to be remembered. Consider it a charming piece of historical flattery."