As the light screen talked about lost military manuals and questionable history books, Liu Bei suddenly remembered something.
He turned toward Zhuge Liang.
"Kongming, didn't you mention recently that you wanted to write a military manual of your own?"
Pang Tong's ears perked up immediately. Huh? New project? he thought. I'm listening.
"Watching these broadcasts from the future has given me a few ideas," Zhuge Liang said. "Lately I've been thinking about Sun Tzu's argument that a skilled commander makes the enemy move according to his plans rather than reacting to theirs."
He idly waved his feather fan.
"I'm only putting a few thoughts on paper for now. Nothing finished."
Liu Bei leaned forward with interest.
"What kind of thoughts? Do you want to explain, Kongming?"
Zhuge Liang set the fan across his lap.
"No worry, my lord. The problem starts from this: a commander shouldn't spend his days chasing the enemy around the countryside. If you're always reacting, you're already losing initiative. The goal is to shape the battlefield so your opponent is forced to make the moves you want."
Liu Bei nodded.
"I think Sun Tzu already said much the same thing. Those skilled in war make the enemy come to them."
"He did," Zhuge Liang agreed. "I'm simply trying to express the idea in a form that's easier to apply and match with our condition."
"Oh, I'm curious now."
Zhuge Liang smiled.
"Just sixteen characters, my lord."
Liu Bei laughed.
"Only sixteen?"
"The core idea from the light screen. We saw their warfare together. So I just try to sum it up. Retreat when the enemy advances. Harass when they stop. Strike when they grow weary. Pursue when they withdraw."
Liu Bei repeated the words quietly to himself.
After a moment, he looked up.
"That's a fresh idea, Kongming. But it sounds like only part of the picture."
"It is," Zhuge Liang nodded.
"Any conflict against a stronger opponent passes through stages."
He lifted a finger.
"First comes strategic defense. Avoid decisive engagements. Stretch the enemy's supply lines. Force them to spend men and resources for every mile they advance."
A second finger followed.
"Then comes strategic stalemate. Establish secure bases. Train troops. Strengthen administration. Let the enemy exhaust himself trying to suppress territory he cannot truly control."
Finally, he raised a third finger.
"Only then do you reach strategic offense. Once the enemy's strength is diminished and his morale begins to crack, you stop enduring and start advancing."
Liu Bei considered the framework.
"So you're turning broad principles into a sequence."
"Something like that."
"And where do we place the people in all this?" Liu Bei asked. "From what I know, Sun Tzu spends far more time discussing armies than civilians."
"Because he lived in a different era, my lord."
Zhuge Liang's expression became thoughtful.
"Most of the states of his era possessed larger populations and stronger institutions than we do. For him, civilian support was largely assumed."
"But not for us," Zhuge Liang said.
Liu Bei frowned. "Not for us? Why?"
Zhuge Liang shook his head.
"A soldier may carry a spear, but someone must grow the grain that feeds him. Someone must provide information. Someone must repair roads, transport supplies, and replace losses. An army that loses the support of the people eventually loses everything else."
Liu Bei smiled.
"So in your view, Kongming, the people are part of the battlefield."
"They always were," Zhuge Liang returned the smile. "Most commanders simply forget it."
Liu Bei leaned back in his chair.
"Now I understand."
"Oh, what is it, my lord?"
"You're not rewriting Sun Tzu."
Zhuge Liang laughed softly.
"No. I wouldn't dare, my lord."
"You're adapting him, right?"
Liu Bei pointed at him.
"Taking old principles and translating them into something useful for men like us. A group of men who spend half their lives outnumbered, always getting beaten by more power, more numbers."
That earned a laugh from everyone nearby.
"Now with the changing conditions," Liu Bei asked, still smiling, "what happens if we're no longer the weaker side?"
Zhuge Liang's eyes glinted.
"Then I suppose I'll have to write another chapter."
Liu Bei shook his head and laughed.
"You make it sound easy, Kongming."
"The theory is always easier, my lord."
"To put in practice? The reality is the hard part."
That drew an even bigger laugh.
Liu Bei grew thoughtful again.
"Hmm... You mentioned once that you were working on something larger. Not just scattered notes, but a proper book."
Zhuge Liang smiled.
"You have a good memory, my lord."
"I remember what matters. What do you call it?"
"Twenty-Four Chapters on Military Strategy. Future generations might call it the essence of my experience in governing and leading armies."
Liu Bei gestured toward the blank scrolls nearby. "What's in it?"
Zhuge Liang touched the scrolls lightly.
"It's not just tactics. There are chapters on establishing headquarters and organizing territories. On listening to advice and investigating doubts. On a fair system of rewards and punishments, because soldiers who believe in their commander's justice will not waver."
"That's what you've done here," Liu Bei said. "Punish the guilty. Reward the deserving."
"That's the core. A general must also know when to show anger and when to remain calm. Emotional instability in a commander is a disaster for the army."
He paused, his voice softening.
"And there's one section I'm particularly fond of. About 'thinking and considering.'"
He looked at Liu Bei.
"Great disasters arise from ease. Destruction comes from survival. The wise see the beginning and already know the end. They see the small and already understand its great meaning."
Liu Bei smiled.
"That's why you're always one step ahead."
"Or at least I try to be," Zhuge Liang said modestly.
Liu Bei was quiet for a moment.
"When you finish that book, Kongming..."
He paused.
"Let me know. I want to be the first to read it."
Zhuge Liang smiled.
"You already are, my lord. You're listening to part of it."
Pang Tong listened and felt genuine awe. This guy never took a day off. A productivity machine. A monster.
Please, Kongming, he thought, just go on vacation somewhere. Take a nap. Stare at a wall. Do nothing for five minutes. I'm begging you.
Then a spark of an idea hit him.
The government workshops in Chengdu were mass-producing paper for cheap. Maybe he should start writing his own daily thoughts down. According to the future broadcast, even a boring diary about what someone ate for breakfast, or just walking down the street, could become a priceless treasure if it survived long enough.
Besides, he had to think about his legacy. He'd captured Yizhou and Hanzhong. He'd worked with Xu Shu in Jingzhou. If they took Guanzhong, his achievements would carry serious weight.
If I wrote a brilliant strategy guide now, he thought, maybe that legendary Duke of Wei, Li Jing from the Tang Dynasty, would end up studying my military strategy in the future.
The idea was very appealing.
He smiled to himself.
Future generals, reading my work. Not the other way around.
His daydream got interrupted by Zhuge Liang's smooth voice.
"Besides," Zhuge Liang said, a playful glint in his eye, "when the day finally comes to teach military strategy to young Jiang Wei, I'll need a proper textbook."
Pang Tong almost choked.
He glanced across the room. Zhang Fei was wiggling his eyebrows like a madman, clearly about to explode from holding back laughter.
Pang Tong shot him a warning look.
"A brilliant and far-sighted plan, Kongming," Pang Tong said, forcing his voice to stay professional.
"It's just a pity Han Sui currently holds Tianshui. Since we're friendly with Ma Chao, Han Sui has gotten suspicious. Otherwise, we could send a team to grab Jiang Wei and his family and bring them straight to Chengdu."
Pang Tong locked eyes with Zhuge Liang.
For a split second, competitive energy crackled between the two strategists. Then Zhuge Liang broke the tension with a warm smile.
"I appreciate your concern for transportation, Shiyuan," he replied smoothly, turning back to the screen.
"But Chengdu is too far. If we do grab the boy early, keeping him in Hanzhong would be enough. After all, Fengchu's talents are known across the world. You would make an excellent tutor."
Zhang Fei's head whipped back and forth between the two advisors. Then he immediately buried his face in both hands. The general was shaking so hard his chair creaked.
Pang Tong stared at him.
Liu Bei loudly cleared his throat to save his staff from themselves. He expertly changed the subject.
"This Song Dynasty really baffles me," Liu Bei said, frowning. "They've got all these military classics to study. They've got aggressive neighbors giving them constant combat practice. They've got terrifying siege weapons like the eight-ox crossbow. So how did their fighting spirit get so... pathetic?"
Pang Tong recognized that his lord was hiding his own amusement behind the question, but he gratefully took the lifeline.
"They don't lack theory, my lord," Pang Tong analyzed. "They definitely don't lack weapons. So the problem must be either a broken system or their nomadic enemies are just too strong."
Everyone in the room had read the reports from Jingzhou. The future siege of Fancheng didn't just sound brutal. It sounded like something out of a fever dream.
Giant warships. Sailing right up to the city walls. Not for transport. For combat. Parked there like floating fortresses, raining down arrows and stones while the defenders could only hide behind their battlements.
And the arrows weren't normal either. Special designs. Heavy heads. Meant to smash, not pierce. Each volley chipped away at the walls themselves, breaking morale along with the stone.
The whole fortress fell in seven days.
Seven days.
A level of mechanized brutality that was hard to wrap your head around.
Pang Tong also remembered that the Song's final collapse involved a desperate, grinding war around that same city.
"But the screen said the Song held out against the Mongols at Xiangyang and Fancheng for over a decade," Pang Tong continued, frowning deeper. "That means even if the enemy was terrifying, the Song weren't completely useless..."
He shook his head.
The more I think about the Song Dynasty, the more confused I get.
[Lightscreen]
[To be fair, the most valuable part of Questions and Replies isn't the political gossip. It's the military information hidden inside it.
The book preserves a surprisingly detailed picture of how the Tang army actually functioned.
It breaks down army organization, battlefield doctrine, and the way infantry and cavalry operated together. These parts are practical and historically accurate.
Ironically, that's because military science is boring.
A forger can invent dramatic conversations and political conspiracies. It's much harder to invent a working military system. The moment you start discussing troop ratios, logistics, and battlefield coordination, reality has a habit of exposing bad ideas very quickly.
As a result, the political sections of the book are questionable, but the military sections preserve a great deal of genuine Tang doctrine.
According to the manual, a standard Tang expeditionary army commanded by a general had 20,000 men.
Out of these, 14,000 were frontline combat troops.
The remaining 6,000 were responsible for transport, supplies, baggage protection, engineering work, and the endless logistical tasks that keep an army alive.
The force was divided into seven regiments with specialized functions. Most importantly, cavalry had to account for at least one-third of the combat strength.
That requirement wasn't negotiable.
The Tang military machine was built around cavalry, and everything else existed to support it
Li Jing's doctrine then broke down the remaining infantry into specialized roles.
There were dedicated archers, heavy crossbowmen, mounted infantry capable of moving rapidly across long distances, elite assault troops known as the Leaping Vanguard, and reserve formations designed to reinforce weak points during battle.
A standard Tang combat brigade had a very specific ratio.
Roughly 2,900 vanguard shock troops. The same number of mixed infantry reserves. 2,000 heavy crossbowmen alongside 2,200 regular archers.
A massive logistics corps of nearly 7,000 men handling supplies.
And the absolute core of the army's killing power: at least 4,000 heavy cavalry.
Of the 14,000 combat troops, 12,000 were provided with armor.
That may not sound impressive to modern audiences, but for the seventh century it represented an enormous concentration of military resources.
These weren't lightly equipped militias carrying farm tools.
This was a professional war machine.
For generations, this force structure became the standard model of Tang warfare.
Every commander had access to roughly the same tools. The difference between a good general and a great one came down to how effectively he used those four thousand horsemen.
And Tang commanders developed several favorite methods
The first was the deep penetration strike.
The best example came during the destruction of the Eastern Turks. Rather than waste time grinding through the enemy's entire army, Tang cavalry bypassed the main force and drove straight toward the command center.
Kill the leadership, and the army often collapses on its own
The second method was the long-distance pursuit.
Li Jing Used against the Tuyuhun. Both Li Shimin and Su Dingfang were masters of this terrifying tactic.
During the conquest of the Western Turks, Su Dingfang chased the fleeing enemy from the Altai Mountains in modern Xinjiang all the way into modern Kyrgyzstan.
Through scorching deserts and into freezing blizzards, driving thousands of li into Central Asia before finally destroying them. The campaign covered nearly four thousand li.
The entire war lasted only four months.
We'll save that story for another video because it deserves one of its own
The third method was flanking encirclement.
Instead of attacking an enemy's strongest point, cavalry struck the sides and rear while infantry fixed the opponent in place from the front.
Several major rebellions were crushed through exactly this approach.
The fourth method targeted logistics.
Li Shimin used this perfectly when he cut Dou Jiande's supply lines.
Rather than destroy the enemy army directly, he attacked the supplies feeding it. Once food stopped arriving, military strength vanished surprisingly quickly.
An army without food is just a crowd of hungry men.
But cavalry wasn't the true masterpiece of Tang warfare.
The real masterpiece was coordination.
The Tang army operated like a machine whose parts were carefully synchronized.
Every unit had a specific role. Every movement occurred at a predetermined moment.
The battlefield wasn't chaos. It was choreography.
One of the best examples was the rotating-fire system used by Tang crossbow formations.
The formation itself was rectangular.
The front rank consisted of active shooters. Behind them stood rows of soldiers loading spare crossbows. Officers occupied the center while drummers controlled the timing of the entire operation.
When the enemy crossed the 220 meter mark, the heavy crossbowmen in the front line fired.
Then they retreated to the back to reload. The next line stepped forward and fired. Then they retreated. And so on. This created a continuous stream of arrows.
The sequence went like this.
At 220 meters, heavy crossbowmen fired their first volley.
At 90 meters, the regular archers joined in, doubling the rate of fire.
At 30 meters, the archers pulled back to shoot from behind the lines while the crossbowmen dropped their weapons, drew their swords, and moved into melee as reserves.
When the front lines clashed, the vanguard and central infantry took the first hit.
If they couldn't break the enemy line immediately, the heavy cavalry on the flanks and the fresh infantry reserves launched a second assault.
This let the exhausted frontline units fall back, rest, and become the new reserve.
This system was incredibly lethal, highly scientific, and remarkably cost effective.
It's why the early Tang conquered the continent without going broke.
Behind all of this stood the famous fubing system, often translated as the territorial militia system.
These were farmer soldiers who received land in exchange for military service. At its height, the Tang maintained about 600 fubing units, each with 800 to 1,200 soldiers.
The system was genius. Soldiers supported themselves by farming when not on campaign. The government didn't have to pay for a massive standing army.
Unfortunately, the system contained a fatal weakness.
Most of the units were concentrated in the north, especially around Guanzhong and the capital region.
Of the roughly 600 units in existence, more than 261 were located there alone. The rest were scattered across the empire.
This imbalance meant the burden of defense fell disproportionately on the northern provinces.
And when prolonged wars broke out in the late 7th century, the fubing system began to crack.
Men died in far off lands and never returned. Families weren't compensated properly. Morale dropped. Desertion increased.
By 737, the court decided to replace irregular troops entirely with permanent soldiers recruited from volunteers.
The fubing system was officially abolished in 749.
But that was later. During Li Jing's era, the system was still working at its peak.
When Li Yuan founded the dynasty, he created the famous Twelve Armies, elite formations with names like the Army of the Celestial Lion's Pelt and the Army of the Celestial Black Lance.
They protected the imperial heartland and served as the strategic reserve of the empire.
When Li Shimin inherited the throne, he refined and reorganized the entire structure.
By the time the Twelve Armies were dissolved in 636, the Tang military system had already matured into one of the most effective fighting forces of the medieval world.
The results spoke for themselves.
Li Jing destroyed the Tuyuhun. Su Dingfang erased the Western Turks. Entire kingdoms vanished after campaigns that barely lasted a few months. On paper, the victories looked effortless.
They weren't.
Behind every triumph was something less glamorous but far more important. Logistics. Organization. Discipline. Planning. Thousands of men moving in sync. Supplies stretching across deserts and mountains. Commanders making split-second decisions based on hours of preparation.
The system worked because it treated war like a science. Every soldier had a role. Every unit had a purpose. Every arrow was calculated before it was fired.
It wasn't just bravery that won battles.
It was math.]
Inside Ganlu Hall, the atmosphere was electric. Officials stared at the screen like kids watching a puppet show. The broadcast used simple squares and circles to show the battle lines, but somehow it made the complex tactics easy to understand.
Li Jing leaned forward, curiosity etched on his weathered face.
"This doctrine," he said thoughtfully, "is a bit different from how we deploy troops now."
Li Shimin nodded, instantly getting it.
"The future scholar already said the book was a fake using your name," the Emperor pointed out. "The text was probably written decades from now, around Emperor Xuanzong's time. Makes sense the author described the military structure of his era, not ours."
"True," Li Jing conceded. "But the basic mechanics are still worth studying."
The surrounding generals murmured agreement. But the diagrams were secondary. The real prize was the detailed breakdowns of future campaigns.
Li Shimin watched with a satisfied smile.
"Your campaigns against the Turks and Tuyuhun will be the cavalry warfare textbook for a thousand years, Yaoshi," the Emperor praised warmly.
Li Jing immediately lowered his head in practiced humility.
"Destroying the Turks was all Your Majesty's strategy," he deflected smoothly. "And since the Tuyuhun Kingdom is still very much alive on our western border, I can't claim credit for a victory that hasn't happened yet."
Right in the middle of this polite back-and-forth, a name flashed across the screen in bright text.
Su Dingfang.
Su Lie, who had been standing quietly in the back furiously memorizing the diagrams, got shocked. His eyes widened in disbelief.
Wait, he thought, heart hammering. I get to destroy an entire nation?
And not just any nation. The Western Turkic Khaganate? The one that dominates the entire western frontier?
He blinked.
Is this true? Or are these future descendants just pulling my leg?
Am I really that much of a genius?
He paused.
Why don't I feel like a genius?
I feel like a guy who's just trying not to mess up in front of the Emperor.
Li Shimin's eyes practically glowed.
He had a sharp memory for the scattered facts the screen had dropped over the past months. He distinctly remembered that the Western Turks were eventually destroyed during his son Emperor Gaozong's reign.
But the general who would pull off that victory was standing right here.
In an instant, Li Shimin mentally took the image of his toddler son Li Zhi and unceremoniously tossed it out a window.
Sorry, kid. Daddy's taking this one.
Su Dingfang was in the prime of his physical and tactical life. Why wait twenty years? Li Shimin could hand him an army right now and add another glorious chapter to his own reign as Heavenly Khagan.
More importantly, the math was perfect.
Su Dingfang was exactly one year younger than Li Shimin. The ideal candidate to groom as the next supreme commander.
The future broadcasts had repeatedly frustrated the Emperor about his choice of successors.
He had given command to Duan Zhixuan, and the man came back empty-handed after burning through mountains of supplies.
He had handed a glorious victory to Hou Junji, and the arrogant fool used the prestige to plot treason.
Li Shimin knew his future self had desperately tried to cultivate younger men from his old Qin Prince faction to replace the aging Li Jing.
He had failed spectacularly.
But looking at Su Lie right now, a man with Li Jing's tactical brain and the physical stamina of youth, the Emperor felt a surge of confidence.
The Tang might actually wipe the entire Turkic threat off the map before the Zhenguan era even ends.
Standing quietly to the side, Li Ji was running frantic calculations in his head.
He didn't even need a map. From Chang'an expanding westward, the only legitimate powers worth destroying were the Tuyuhun, Gaochang, Kucha, the Western Turks, and Tibet.
If Li Jing was tagged for the Tuyuhun, and this young Su Dingfang was destined to crush the Western Turks, what was left for him?
Kucha? he thought. The kingdom nobody remembers? The consolation prize of conquest?
Absolutely not.
Gaochang was Hou Junji's glory. But since that traitor is getting his head chopped off...
He smiled.
That command is mine.
He was one of the three supreme Gods of War of the early Tang. Future historians praised his loyalty. He was infinitely more reliable than a dead man walking.
I'll take Gaochang. Even if I have to personally beg the Emperor.
Completely oblivious to the intense career plotting happening just a few feet away, Li Shimin strode forward with the aggressive, confident gait of a predator.
He ignored royal protocol and clapped a heavy hand directly onto Su Lie's shoulder.
"You are a brilliant young prodigy, Dingfang," Li Shimin declared, his voice echoing through the pavilion. "I expect great things from you. Starting tomorrow, you will follow General Li Jing and meticulously study all incoming intelligence regarding the Tuyuhun border."
Su Lie's brain short-circuited for a second.
Young prodigy? he thought. I'm thirty. He's thirty one. We're practically the same age.
He glanced at Li Shimin. The Emperor looked completely serious.
Right. He's the Emperor. He can say whatever he wants.
He dropped to one knee.
"I will not disappoint Your Majesty," he said, voice steady despite his racing heart.
Li Jing watched from the side, a faint smile playing on his lips.
Another apprentice, the old general thought. At this rate, I'll have my own military academy.
---
Far to the south, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun both felt immense vindication. Attending this viewing session was worth its weight in gold.
The simple geometric tactical demonstrations on the screen were priceless military intelligence.
Both generals had commandeered brushes and paper, desperately sketching the formations before the screen changed.
While drawing, Zhao Yun felt profound awe at the Tang Empire's sheer economic power.
One Tang field army uses seven regiments, he calculated. Heavy cavalry plus mounted infantry? That's at least five to six thousand premium warhorses. Per army.
He mentally audited his lord's current cavalry assets. He personally commanded a highly elite unit, but it only had three hundred decent mounts.
Of those three hundred, barely a hundred were genuine top tier stallions from the northern plains of Youzhou.
The rest were sturdy but unremarkable local breeds. Fine for the muddy terrain of Jingzhou and the mountains of Yizhou.
But taking them onto the open plains against Cao Cao's elite northern cavalry?
The outcome would not be pleasant..
Then he thought about the Tang Empire.
He had secretly run the math based on previous broadcasts. During the An Lushan Rebellion, the Tang deployed a combined force of at least four hundred thousand men.
If every army of twenty thousand needed five thousand premium horses...
One hundred thousand, he whispered internally. One hundred thousand magnificent warhorses.
And that was just the active military. Factoring in the massive breeding pastures, the logistical reserves, and inevitable breeding failure rates...
He stopped calculating.
The numbers simply made him feel poor.
Four parts pure envy, he thought. Three parts heavy sighing. Two parts heartbreak. And one part lingering regret.
The Tang military machine was everything a commander could dream of: disciplined troops, abundant horses, reliable logistics, and a battlefield doctrine refined through generations of victory.
And somehow, despite all that, it still couldn't save itself from internal chaos.
History really did have a cruel sense of humor.