The ancient art of war always preached a fundamental truth. If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
Li Shimin had always firmly believed that he mastered the "know yourself" half of that equation with absolute perfection.
Take the brutal wars that established the Great Tang Dynasty as a prime example. Back in those chaotic days, countless fierce generals serving under his banner practically begged him to stop charging into the front lines. They warned him about the chaos and unpredictability of the battlefield.
He ignored them every time.
History proved him right. By the time the dust settled and the empire was secured, six of his personal warhorses had been slaughtered beneath him in various cavalry charges. Yet Li Shimin himself had never suffered a single major injury. He had an uncanny ability to dance on the razor's edge of death without getting cut.
During a casual chat some time ago, his trusted advisor Du Ruhui had offered a brilliant summary of his military style. He noted that the Emperor loved to flirt with danger, but he never actually fell into a truly dangerous trap.
Li Shimin was immensely proud of that evaluation. Surviving a reckless charge once could easily be chalked up to blind luck. Surviving dozens of them and coming out as the supreme ruler of the known world proved something entirely different. It proved that the Tiance Admiral truly understood his own limits and the limits of his enemies. He knew exactly when to push and exactly when to pull back.
This self-knowledge shaped his politics too. When the empire was weak, he swallowed his pride and endured the humiliating treaty at the Wei River. When a plague of locusts threatened to starve his people, he publicly swallowed a live locust to demonstrate solidarity and set an example for the realm. He knew how to adapt.
However, staring at the light screen and listening to the brutal historical analysis from the future generation, that pride began to crack. The narrator was systematically dismantling his legacy as a father. Li Shimin was finally beginning to realize just how spectacularly he had failed in the delicate art of educating his own sons.
No minister dared speak. Du Ruhui's fingers traced the edge of his sleeve, his gaze fixed on the polished floor tiles. Fang Xuanling kept his breathing shallow, his eyes lowered.
Wei Zheng, the notoriously king of troll Zhenguan era, the imperial censor, shifted in his spot. He tried to hold his tongue. He really did.
Oh man, this is killing me. Just stay quiet, Wei Zheng. Let the Emperor brood. Let the silence hang. You do not have to fix everything.
The silence stretched.
...Alright, who am I kidding. I am the king of trolls. The future descendants gave me that title. My whole life is built on saying the uncomfortable thing. If not me, then who?
"Your Majesty," Wei Zheng began, his voice cutting through the stillness. "The tragedy of a father and son turning their weapons against each other always has a root cause. The root often lies in a specific dynamic. The son might say, 'My father teaches me to follow the correct path, but my father himself did not emerge from a correct path.'"
To his left, Chancellor Fang Xuanling and Minister Du Ruhui instinctively tensed. They exchanged a rapid, terrified glance. They had always known Wei Zheng possessed an unbelievably thick neck, but they suddenly gained a brand new appreciation for his sheer, suicidal lack of fear.
Alright, Xuan Cheng. You are a legend. But we are going to need to start picking out your coffin. Seriously. Saying these words directly to the Emperor's face?
The core literary reference Wei Zheng used was actually perfectly standard for a Confucian scholar. It came straight out of a famous dialogue between the ancient sage Mencius and his disciple Gongsun Chou. The philosophical discussion centered on why fathers often exchanged sons to educate them.
In that ancient text, the word "correct" meant strict moral discipline and righteous conduct. The basic logic was simple. If a father relentlessly disciplined his son and demanded perfect behavior, the son would inevitably push back and complain. The son would point out that his father demanded absolute perfection but failed to set a flawless example in his own life.
Basically, it was the ancient Chinese version of "Do as I say, not as I do." But said with a lot more philosophical weight and a lot less parenting awareness.
It was a standard philosophical point about the limits of paternal authority. But saying it out loud right here, right now, in this specific room, was a verbal hand grenade. With the pin already pulled.
Everyone in the Tang court understood the unspoken context. The bloody root of the current Crown Prince crisis boiled down to a single, unmentionable historical event.
The Xuanwu Gate Incident.
How exactly did Li Shimin become the Crown Prince? He certainly did not emerge from a peaceful, "correct" path. He secured his position by ambushing and slaughtering his own brothers at the palace gates, then forcing his father to abdicate. It was not exactly the textbook definition of a "correct path."
Therefore, Wei Zheng's quote was a devastating double entendre. On the surface, he was simply pointing out that Li Shimin had failed to set a good moral example for his troubled son. Beneath the surface, he was directly pointing a finger at the Xuanwu Gate Incident, boldly suggesting that Li Shimin's original sin of fratricide had planted the seeds of rebellion and paranoia that were now poisoning the next generation of the Li family.
In other words, Wei Zheng was saying: "Hey, Your Majesty, remember that time you murdered your brothers to take the throne? Yeah, your son noticed. And now he thinks that is how things work around here."
Considering Wei Zheng's complicated political background as a former advisor to the very brother Li Shimin had murdered, this comment was incredibly dangerous. Even though Du Ruhui implicitly trusted the Emperor's legendary capacity for tolerance, he instinctively began sweating, fearing for Wei Zheng's head.
As expected, Li Shimin's face went pale. The color drained from his cheeks, leaving his skin the shade of old parchment.
But no anger followed. The Emperor did not shout. He did not order the guards.
Li Shimin stood perfectly still for a long moment. He let out a slow sigh that seemed to carry the weight of years. He deliberately avoided looking at Wei Zheng, whose neck was still craned in defiance. Instead, the Emperor turned his gaze to the massive map of the Great Tang territory pinned to the pavilion wall.
"To secure the welfare of millions of common people," Li Shimin whispered, his voice carrying the heavy burden of the crown. "That is the true correctness of a Son of Heaven."
He was not denying the bloodshed of his past. He was justifying it through the peace and prosperity he had built.
Wei Zheng considered this for a moment. Then he nodded.
Du Ruhui exhaled. Wei Zheng knew better than to push the Xuanwu Gate issue any further. The censor accepted the Emperor's ultimate justification and returned to the text.
"Mencius also offered another piece of wisdom," Wei Zheng continued, his tone softening slightly. "He stated that a father and a son should never demand moral perfection from one another. Demanding absolute perfection only breeds resentment, and resentment leads to permanent alienation."
Wei Zheng paused. "Your Majesty, in your past dealings with the Crown Prince, you have frequently fallen into the trap of demanding absolute perfection."
Li Shimin's hand pressed against his chest. He knew that exact chapter of Mencius. He had read it countless times. Yet he had never considered how it applied to his own family.
Mencius believed that the pure relationship between a father and a son should not be polluted by the rigid, critical dynamic of a strict teacher and a flawed student. A teacher must demand perfection and point out every single mistake. A father doing the exact same thing would inevitably trigger defensive anger in the son. The father would become furious at the lack of progress. The son would become resentful of the endless criticism.
Eventually, they would grow apart. They would alienate each other until the father no longer felt like a father, and the teacher failed to actually teach anything. It was abandoning the foundation to chase the superficial.
Li Shimin stood silent, his jaw tightening as he absorbed the truth of his own parenting.
"Xuan Cheng," Li Shimin finally said, his voice quiet but steady. "Cancel your afternoon plans. You will stay in the palace and share a meal with me today."
Wei Zheng bowed and cupped his hands. He understood. The Emperor wanted a long, private conversation about reforming the Crown Prince's education.
As for Liu Renyuan's fate, Wei Zheng kept silent. There was no need to state the obvious. That general had not yet entered imperial service in their current timeline. Now that the Emperor knew his worth, Liu Renyuan would be protected and used.
The same was true for Li Zhi's mismanagement of the Korean peninsula. The breakdown of how Baekje was lost would guide their own campaigns. They would do the opposite of what Li Zhi did.
These were simple strategic problems. Wei Zheng was a practical man. He saw no need to analyze problems the Emperor had already solved.
The screen shimmered, moving on from Liu Renyuan's exile.
[Lightscreen]
[However, Liu Renyuan was certainly not the only Tang official to perform brilliantly on the Korean peninsula only to vanish from the mainstream historical narrative.
Let us look at the bigger picture. After the Tang military finally crushed Goguryeo, the regional war did not magically stop. Large pockets of Goguryeo resistance fighters melted into the rugged terrain and launched a brutal guerrilla insurgency against the occupying Tang forces.
This is where the historical evaluation of Li Zhi becomes incredibly contradictory and fascinating.
If you want to argue that Li Zhi was a brilliant political operator, you have to reconcile that with the fact that he singlehandedly engineered the total collapse of the Ungjin Commandery.
His paranoid reshuffling of generals literally handed the Baekje territory over to Silla on a silver platter.
But if you want to argue that Li Zhi was just a paranoid fool, you are ignoring his genuine geopolitical brilliance. When it came to open warfare, he was notoriously indecisive and prone to panic. But when it came to pure, cynical diplomatic leverage, Li Zhi was an absolute heavyweight.
In the arena of international diplomacy, he possessed the skills to comfortably go toe to toe with his legendary father, Li Shimin.
Following the disastrous defeat of the Tang army at the Battle of Dafeichuan, Li Zhi found himself dealing with a massive migraine caused by the rising power of the Tibetan Empire in the west. While managing that crisis, his diplomatic instincts flared.
He sensed a deeply unsettling shift in the political atmosphere over on the eastern seaboard.
The Goguryeo insurgents were causing chaos. Silla was acting increasingly aggressive and independent. Li Zhi looked at the map and immediately identified the worst case scenario.
What if these regional powers decided to quietly contact Japan and organized a massive, coordinated counterattack against the overextended Tang forces?
At this specific moment in history, the Tang treasury was severely depleted. Launching another massive, overseas military expedition to crush this potential alliance was financially impossible.
So, Li Zhi decided to get creative. He summoned a highly capable official named Guo Wucong and ordered him to serve as a special envoy to Japan.
This was actually not Guo Wucong's first diplomatic rodeo. Right after the Tang navy annihilated the Japanese fleet at the Battle of Baekgang, Li Zhi had desperately tried to establish diplomatic dominance.
He had sent Guo Wucong to the island nation to essentially act as the big boss of the region and demand submission.
However, the Battle of Baekgang had inflicted severe psychological trauma on the Japanese leadership. They were absolutely terrified. They fully believed that the Tang Empire was preparing a full scale invasion to wipe them off the map.
Because of this blinding terror, they completely refused to meet with Guo Wucong.
They locked their doors and hid.
Now, facing the threat of renewed chaos in the east, Li Zhi lost his patience. Despite the fact that the imperial treasury was running on fumes, he somehow managed to scrape together a terrifying package.
He handed Guo Wucong an elite force of two thousand fully armed soldiers and a fleet of forty seven heavy warships.
Li Zhi gave Guo Wucong a very simple, very clear mandate. This diplomatic mission to Japan absolutely must succeed. Failure was not an option.
Let us be completely honest about what this was. Officially, the paperwork categorized this as a peaceful diplomatic embassy. In reality, it was a textbook example of extreme gunboat diplomacy and naked military intimidation.
Guo Wucong understood the assignment perfectly. He also remembered being rudely ignored during his last visit. He was not going to let that happen again.
He sailed his massive war fleet across the ocean and deliberately parked his forty seven warships right next to Tsushima Island. From that highly threatening vantage point, he dispatched a single, small boat to carry a message to the Japanese mainland.
The exact wording of Guo Wucong's message has been lost to time. We do not know what he wrote. However, the official historical records of Japan simply summarize the message as a "demand to come and pay respects." Judging by the sheer panic it induced, we can safely assume Guo Wucong's tone was incredibly hostile and wildly disrespectful.
He essentially terrified the local government into submission.
After dropping off this thinly veiled threat, Guo Wucong did not even bother waiting for a formal invitation. He completely ignored diplomatic protocol. He ordered his fleet to raise their sails and aggressively pushed into Japanese territorial waters, dropping anchor near Hichi Island.
He literally kicked down the front door of the nation.
What happened next is a masterclass in aggressive geopolitical extortion.
Exactly one month after Guo Wucong violently forced his way into the country, Emperor Tenji of Japan suddenly dropped dead.
Despite the death of the foreign head of state, Guo Wucong and his two thousand heavily armed tourists refused to leave. They essentially occupied the area. They spent the next few months drinking local wine, admiring the cherry blossoms, and generally treating the place like a conquered resort.
They stayed until late May of the following year. Finally, they packed their bags. But they did not leave empty handed.
Guo Wucong casually collected a staggering amount of local tribute. He loaded his ships with one thousand, six hundred and seventy three rolls of premium local silk. He grabbed two thousand, eight hundred and fifty two bolts of fine cloth. He topped it off with six hundred and sixty six catties of raw cotton.
Only after heavily loading his warships with this massive haul of wealth did Guo Wucong and his men wave goodbye and sail back to the Tang mainland.
The domestic history books of Japan attempt to save face by describing this massive transfer of wealth as a "lavish bestowal" to the Tang envoy.
Let us examine the reality of that claim. The specific type of silk Guo Wucong took was heavily utilized within the Japanese economy. During this era, silk functioned almost exactly like hard currency. It was directly equivalent to cash.
For context, many years later, the Japanese government attempted to carefully rebuild their influence on the Korean peninsula. They desperately wanted to bribe and flatter the newly established kingdom of Balhae. Their absolute largest, most generous diplomatic gift to the Balhae king was a grand total of seventy rolls of silk.
Compare that miserable seventy rolls to the absurdly precise, staggering figure of one thousand, six hundred and seventy three rolls that Guo Wucong took home. Looking at those numbers, it is highly probable that Guo Wucong literally emptied the entire national treasury of Japan.
He took everything they had.
All of these details can be found scattered across the Old and New Books of Tang.
But when you cross reference the Tang records with the internal historical records of Japan, this seemingly simple extortion mission suddenly transforms into a wildly fascinating political thriller]
Down in the hall, the tension from Wei Zheng's earlier critique dissolved. Li Shimin's brow smoothed. A wide, amused smile spread across his face.
Wei Zheng, however, looked deeply conflicted. He stroked his beard, his brow furrowing.
"This course of action..." Wei Zheng muttered, shaking his head slowly. "It appears to be far too overbearing. It lacks the grace of a major power."
"Why would anyone waste time discussing grace when dealing with a pack of rabid beasts?" Li Shimin shot back. His smile remained, but his eyes carried a freezing chill.
The Emperor shook his head in disgust. "These islanders spent centuries studying our culture, yet they never grasped the concept of loyalty. They spent over a thousand years reading our sacred classics, yet they remain ignorant of basic honor."
Li Shimin leaned forward, his voice dripping with venom. "They are nothing more than wild monkeys dressed in stolen human clothing. Discussing morality with such creatures is a waste of breath."
Wei Zheng's mouth opened, ready to launch into a passionate debate about Confucian morals.
Li Shimin raised a hand, cutting him off.
"Furthermore," Li Shimin continued, his voice dropping to a low register. "We have all heard the future narrator detail exactly what this nation will do in the distant future. They will invade our heartland. They will slaughter our descendants. Is that how they repay the grace bestowed upon them by the Sui and Tang?"
Wei Zheng's mouth closed. His throat worked silently.
If they were just discussing a regular vassal state, Wei Zheng would have defended diplomatic mercy. But the future screen had explicitly detailed the atrocities Japan would commit centuries later.
Wei Zheng's hand rose slightly, then fell back. He swallowed his arguments.
He was caught between two forces. On one side stood the future narrator, a descendant who shared his knowledge generously. On the other side was a treacherous island nation that took Tang culture only to stab their benefactors in the back.
Wei Zheng knew exactly which side he was on. But his commitment to traditional political theory flared up again.
"Even considering their future crimes," Wei Zheng muttered stubbornly. "If this Guo Wucong truly acted like a pirate... it remains highly inappropriate."
Wei Zheng was a fundamentalist when it came to political philosophy. He believed in the Kingly Way. A state should be morally pure, ruling through benevolence and righteousness. Force was a failure of politics.
If Guo Wucong had just accidentally intimidated the locals, Wei Zheng might have let it slide. But if he had planned to use military force to rob a foreign treasury under the guise of diplomacy, Wei Zheng felt it violated the core principles of a civilized empire.
Before Li Shimin could respond, Li Jing stepped into the fray. He shook his head, utterly rejecting Wei Zheng's civilian idealism.
"I must respectfully disagree," Li Jing stated, his voice firm. "I believe this official's actions were perfectly calculated."
Li Jing ticked points off his fingers. "He extracted their wealth to enrich our struggling citizens. He projected military terror to secure our borders. Accomplishing both goals for the benefit of our people is the definition of true benevolence."
Li Jing narrowed his eyes. The seasoned general suddenly looked like a hawk spotting a field mouse.
"Furthermore," Li Jing added, his tactical mind spinning. "We know the Goguryeo insurgents and Silla were actively contemplating an alliance with Japan. The fact that the future generations are aware of this proves the threat was real."
"To know a threat exists and do nothing is the height of unrighteousness," Li Jing concluded. "Therefore, our envoy kicking down their front door, terrifying their leaders, and neutralizing the threat of Japanese intervention before it started... that is not just appropriate. That is supreme mercy."
For a few tense moments, Li Jing and Wei Zheng locked eyes, unwilling to back down. The pragmatist versus the idealist.
Sitting above the fray, Li Shimin suddenly remembered a historical detail the screen had mentioned. A treaty between the future Liao and Song dynasties involving massive annual payments.
A brilliant, cynical idea blossomed in his mind. His eyes narrowed slightly, and a slow smile spread across his face.
"Think about the timeline," Li Shimin said lazily, steepling his fingers. "If Japan had not spent years secretly funding Baekje, Baekje would never have caused so much trouble."
"And if Baekje had not caused so much trouble," the Emperor continued smoothly, "we likely would have conquered Goguryeo several years earlier."
Li Shimin threw his hands up in mock exasperation. "Do you have any idea how much those extra years of warfare cost us? The laborers worked to death. The treasury funds burned. The pension payouts to dead soldiers' families. The total cost easily exceeded a hundred million strings of cash."
The Emperor's smile turned razor-thin. "Taking a few thousand rolls of silk from their treasury barely covers a fraction of a percent of the damage they caused us. How can anyone call collecting a justified debt unbenevolent?"
Li Jing's eyebrows rose. His mouth opened, then closed. When he finally grasped the concept of retroactively charging Japan for the entire cost of the Korean war, the general slapped his thigh and burst into laughter. He loudly praised the Emperor for his boundless "benevolence and mercy."
Wei Zheng stood still, his brow furrowed, his lips pressed together. His eyes narrowed as he searched for the logical flaw in the Emperor's absurd economic gymnastics.
"Besides," Li Shimin added casually, waving a hand at the screen. "That Japanese king dying right after our envoy arrived? The man clearly died of sheer terror. A coward who simply could not handle the crushing majesty of the Tang military. How can anyone blame our innocent envoy for a weak heart?"
[Lightscreen]
[According to the internal historical records of Japan, Guo Wucong's aggressive arrival perfectly coincided with a massive internal explosion known as the Jinshin War.
The root cause of this conflict was actually quite simple. The catastrophic defeat of the Japanese navy at the Battle of Baekgang severely damaged the political authority of Emperor Tenji. His credibility was shot. The man who had promised to protect the nation had just watched his entire fleet get turned into floating bonfires.
Smelling blood in the water, Emperor Tenji's younger brother, Prince Oama, began aggressively consolidating political power. He gathered disgruntled factions and outmaneuvered his brother at every turn. His political pressure campaign was so successful that in the year 668, he forced the court to officially name him the Crown Prince.
However, shortly after Guo Wucong parked his warships off the coast, the rapidly deteriorating Emperor Tenji made a desperate, paranoid countermove.
From his sickbed, Tenji suddenly announced the promotion of his own son, Prince Otomo, to the position of Chancellor. This was the highest administrative role in the government, effectively making Otomo the Prime Minister.
This single appointment was a political assassination. By giving his son total control over the government bureaucracy, Tenji successfully stripped his brother, Crown Prince Oama, of all actual power.
But Tenji was a veteran survivor of vicious court politics. He had built his own throne through a lifetime of bloody purges and assassinations. He knew that simply stripping his brother of power was not enough to guarantee his son's safety.
So, Tenji summoned Crown Prince Oama to his deathbed. With a weak voice, the Emperor claimed he was dying and generously offered to pass the throne directly to his brother right then and there.
It was a blatant, highly lethal trap.
Prince Oama was no fool. He recognized the trap instantly. If he accepted the throne, Tenji's loyalists would immediately execute him for treason.
Oama played his cards perfectly. He fell to his knees in mock horror. He violently refused the throne. He loudly proclaimed that his brilliant nephew, Chancellor Otomo, was the only man fit to rule the nation. To completely sell the performance and prove he had zero political ambitions, Oama officially resigned from all government posts, shaved his head, and fled to the mountains to become a Buddhist monk.
It was a brilliant tactical retreat. The man knew when to fold and when to run.
As soon as Emperor Tenji finally died in 671, the newly elevated Emperor Otomo immediately began hunting down his uncle. He had no intention of leaving a massive political threat alive, even if that threat was currently wearing monk's robes.
This rapidly escalated into a full blown, incredibly violent civil war. It was the biggest war in ancient Japanese history.
Here is the wildest part of the story. Against all logical odds, the exiled monk actually won. Prince Oama rallied an army of provincial rebels, completely crushed the heavily armed central government forces, and backed his nephew into a corner. Having lost everything, the young Emperor Otomo was forced to commit suicide.
And right in the middle of this chaotic, bloody transition of power, Guo Wucong casually finished packing his bags, waved goodbye to the burning nation, and sailed back to Tang with his holds bursting with extorted treasure.
Rebellions and assassinations were incredibly common in early Japanese history. However, a localized rebellion successfully destroying the established central army was an incredibly rare event. The entire dynamic of the Jinshin War is deeply suspicious. We have absolutely no idea if Guo Wucong secretly funded or influenced the rebellion, but the timing is fascinating.
Following his absolute victory, Prince Oama ascended the throne as Emperor Tenmu in 673.
Tenmu immediately initiated a massive, aggressive wave of Tang style cultural and political reforms. He began restructuring the entire Japanese state from the ground up to mirror the Great Tang.
He was the very first Japanese ruler to adopt the Tang concept of era names. He completely abolished the traditional Japanese calendar system and officially adopted the Yuanjia calendar used by the Tang court. He also likely became the first Japanese ruler to use the title of "Tennō" (Emperor) in his lifetime, a title that may have been inspired by the Daoist deity "Tianhuang" or the Tang emperor's own titles. Before this, Japanese rulers were generally called "King" or "Great King."
Tenmu redistributed political titles and created four new ranks at the top of the noble title system, reducing the influence of powerful clans like the Ōtomo and Soga. He selected a site for a new capital in 683, which would later become Fujiwara-kyō, Japan's first Chinese-style planned city. He also ordered the compilation of imperial records, which would eventually lead to the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki.
Even Emperor Tenmu's death felt like it was ripped straight from a Chinese history book. After he passed away in 686, his wife, who also happened to be his biological niece, survived a brutal power struggle. She officially took control of the government, first as regent, then as empress regnant in 690, becoming only the third female monarch in Japanese history. She is known as Empress Jito.
Empress Jito ruled with an iron fist for seven years. In 697, she formally abdicated the throne to her grandson, Emperor Mommu. But she did not actually give up power. She created the brand new title of Retired Emperor (Daijō Tennō), ruling the nation from behind the curtain alongside her grandson. This was a Japan first, and it would become a persistent trend in Japanese politics for centuries.
Think about all these specific historical beats. A vicious succession war between brothers. An Empress seizing total imperial control. A dual ruling structure. The invention of a Retired Emperor system to maintain shadow power.
It is utterly impossible not to look at this sequence of events and immediately think of Chinese historical figures. The brotherly betrayal mirrors Zhao Kuangyin and Zhao Guangyin. The female emperor mirrors Wu Zetian. The political structures are identical. The imitation was absolute.
It is a profound tragedy that the central plains dynasties historically cared so little about maritime exploration. Because the Tang court viewed the ocean as a useless wasteland, a man like Guo Wucong, a diplomat who very likely altered the entire trajectory of Japanese history, does not even warrant a dedicated biography in the official Tang records. His exploits only survive in the terrified chronicles of the nation he extorted.
Some modern historians argue that Guo Wucong was just a rogue military officer from the Ungjin garrison who decided to sail over and rob the Japanese for fun.
But the Japanese historical records explicitly state that Guo Wucong arrived carrying official state documents and a "letter box" containing a diplomatic communication from the Tang Emperor. And the very first line of those documents deeply offended the Japanese court.
The letter was written directly by Li Zhi, and it opened with the incredibly arrogant phrase: "The Emperor of the Great Tang respectfully addresses the King of Japan."
The Japanese elite found this deeply humiliating. Years earlier, in 607, they had successfully managed to refer to their ruler as an "Emperor" when exchanging letters with the Sui Dynasty. This was the famous "Son of Heaven in the land where the sun rises" letter. Now, Li Zhi was aggressively demoting their ruler back down to the status of a mere local King. They complained about it bitterly.
The fact that he carried this specific, highly insulting state letter proves that Guo Wucong was on an official mission authorized by the throne. He was projecting the pure, unfiltered arrogance of the Great Tang.]
In a completely different timeline, deep within the imperial gardens of the Song Dynasty capital, Zhao Guangyin stared at the glowing screen.
As the narrator mentioned a "vicious succession war between brothers" and dropped his name directly next to his older brother, Emperor Zhao Kuangyin, terror seized him.
Oh no. Oh no no no no no.
Every hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He did not raise his head. He could feel his older brother's gaze burning into the side of his skull. Heavy. Suspicious. The kind of gaze that made you want to suddenly remember you had somewhere else to be.
His breath quickened. His hands gripped the armrests of his chair, knuckles whitening. His mind raced as he remembered the heavy jade axe his brother always kept tucked into his belt.
That axe. That stupid jade axe. Why does he always carry it around? It is not even a real weapon. It is ceremonial. But it is still heavy enough to do some serious damage. Especially to the back of my head.
The screen continued, indifferent to his panic. The narrator kept talking about brotherly betrayal and succession wars like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Why is this happening to me? I did not even do anything. Yet. I mean, I thought about it. Sure. But thinking is not the same as doing. Right? RIGHT?
He risked a tiny glance to his left. His brother was still staring. The gaze had not softened. It had actually gotten worse.
Okay. Stay calm. Breathe. Do not make any sudden movements. Do not reach for anything. Definitely do not reach for anything that looks like a weapon.
The jade axe glinted in the sunlight.
Zhao Guangyin forced a smile.
It was the most unconvincing smile he had ever produced in his entire life. The smile of a man who was absolutely certain he was about to be murdered.
"Brother," he said, his voice cracking slightly. "That is... quite an interesting broadcast, is it not?"
Zhao Kuangyin did not respond. He just kept staring.