[Lightscreen]
["Strictly speaking, what people usually call powerful local clans would be more accurately labeled powerful landlord clans.
History loves euphemisms."
"The true watershed of the Western Han was not its founding—but Emperor Wu.
Before the Enfeoffment Reduction Edict, princely states dotted the realm like weeds, while the Son of Heaven directly controlled a grand total of seventeen commanderies.
Afterward, the age of semi-independent princes ended, and the Han dynasty finally became what we would recognize as a centralized empire."
"Emperor Wu was able to dream big, act big, and spend big for one simple reason:
Wen and Jing left him a very solid inheritance."
The narrator paused.
"And this is where modern misunderstandings begin."
"People see the posthumous titles Wen and Jing and instinctively imagine two emperors reclining comfortably, practicing effortless non-action while the empire somehow governed itself.
As if the Han dynasty just… ran on autopilot."
"Reality was less poetic."
"The first emperor to unleash harsh officials was not Emperor Wu.
It was Emperor Wen."
"And the reason was equally unromantic:
The powerful clans were already becoming ungovernable."
The lightscreen displayed a quotation from the Records of the Grand Historian.
'The Jian clan of Jinan numbered over three hundred households—violent and lawless. Even officials of two-thousand-dan rank could not restrain them. Emperor Jing therefore appointed Zhi Du as Administrator of Jinan. Upon arrival, he exterminated the clan's ringleaders. The rest trembled in terror.'
"Three hundred households."
The narrator lingered on the number.
"In a feudal state, that was enough to ignore the law entirely—so much so that the local prince had to beg the central court for help.
That was the raw vitality of the early great clans."
"After Zhi Du, Emperors Jing and Wu continued to employ harsh officials in earnest.
Ten of them are named outright in the Biographies of Harsh Officials.
And the most frequently repeated words in those accounts?
Clan exterminated. Family wiped out. Executed. Powerful households."
"So yes—
the war between imperial authority and great clans did not begin with Emperor Wu.
It formally started under Emperor Wen."
A brief pause.
"So how did these clans rise so fast?"
"First: the layered, fragmented authority of the princely states provided perfect soil.
Second: disaster watered it generously."
"During Emperor Wen's twenty-three-year reign alone, historical records list twenty-six major calamities—floods, droughts, earthquakes, hailstorms, famine, locust plagues.
More than one per year."
"For ordinary farmers, a single bad year could mean total ruin.
And once ruined, there was usually only one destination left:
absorption by local strongmen."]
In the Chengdu prefectural hall, the atmosphere grew solemn.
Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, and the others watched in silence, even Li Shimin's earlier self-praise on the lightscreen temporarily forgotten.
Only Zhang Fei muttered under his breath.
"This hasn't been long at all—how is he already calling himself Heavenly Khagan?"
Zhang Fei had been reading more lately; he knew exactly what Khagan meant.
To beat the nomads so thoroughly that they honored you as their supreme ruler—and added Heavenly on top.
Who wouldn't be tempted?
His thoughts wandered.
If we pacify the Central Plains and head north someday… could I earn a title too?
That "Cosmic General" mentioned earlier didn't sound bad at all.
Pang Tong, meanwhile, sounded almost envious.
"The early Han truly was an age of opportunity."
He leaned forward slightly.
"Take Gongsun Hong. Herded pigs by the sea in his youth. Didn't begin studying until forty.
Ten years later—marquis and chancellor."
"And he even set the precedent of ennobling a sitting prime minister."
A collective sigh passed through the hall.
To live in a flourishing age, serve a worthy ruler, realize one's ambitions, and return home honored as a marquis.
No scholar could hear that without envy—especially those who had lived through chaos, lamenting wasted talent before meeting Liu Bei.
Zhang Fei, irritated by the sighing, barked loudly.
"Why sigh at all? If we accomplish our great cause, why envy Gongsun Hong?"
Zhang Song nodded fervently.
I chose the right lord.
Zhuge Liang smiled faintly.
"With Chengdu as our base, Hanzhong to the north, Jingzhou to the east—how could our ambitions fail?"
Pang Tong's eyes flicked sideways.
"Brother Zhang, do you know that in the early Han, there was someone who earned a marquisate in a single incident—no prior rank—and whose descendants prospered for generations?"
Zhang Fei frowned deeply.
"Who?"
"His descendants reached the chancellorship under Emperor Zhao," Pang Tong said lazily.
"And his wife was the daughter of the Grand Historian."
Recognition dawned—and Zhang Fei's expression twisted in disgust.
"You mean Yang Xi of Chiquan?"
"He got his title by carving up Xiang Yu's corpse. That's nothing to be proud of!"
Pang Tong burst out laughing, clapping Zhang Fei on the arm.
"A fine spirit, Yide.
And you're right—the Hongnong Yang clan honors Yang Chang as their founding ancestor, not Yang Xi."
Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang watched the exchange with amusement.
"Yide's reading has paid off," Liu Bei said warmly.
Zhuge Liang nodded.
"In the past year alone, the books he's read would've filled three ox carts if written on bamboo slips.
Now they fit into volumes weighing barely a jin—easy to carry, even on campaign."
He lifted his gaze back to the lightscreen.
He, too, wanted to see how familiar history looked through later eyes.
Chang'an.
Changsun Wuji frowned.
"This later perspective is strange. How could Emperor Wen be considered indecisive in war?"
He smoothly added, "Of course, His Majesty bears the posthumous title Wen as well."
Li Shimin's eyes narrowed with faint satisfaction.
"In my youth, I revered Emperor Wu's conquests.
Only now do I understand Emperor Wen's difficulty."
Du Ruhui shook his head.
"Calling him weak is absurd.
A gentleman cultivates the Six Arts. I ride and draw the bow monthly with Fang Xuanling myself.
Strength of body feeds strength of rule."
Fang Xuanling nodded.
"What does 'wen' have to do with weakness?"
[Lightscreen]
["The Little Pig Emperor—Emperor Wu—hit the powerful clans even harder.
He had no shortage of ruthless officials."
"He rolled out salt and iron monopolies, property taxes, forced resettlement near imperial tombs, centralized coinage.
Policy after policy—each aimed squarely at entrenched interests."
"But in the big picture, his successors lacked his iron grip.
And they inherited an empire already battered and exhausted."
"The result?
The growth of the clans accelerated."
"First: the asset declaration and denunciation edicts.
Originally introduced by Liu Bang, repealed under Empress Lü, revived by Emperor Wu because—surprise—ambitions require money."
"In hindsight, these edicts raised very little revenue.
What they did accomplish was shattering merchant confidence.
Wealthy traders slowly abandoned commerce and reinvented themselves as landholding elites."
"Second: the salt and iron monopolies.
The famous debates under Emperors Wu and Zhao were not merely economic discussions.
They were clashes between imperial authority and local elite interests."
"Sang Hongyang represented the throne.
The sixty-plus Confucian scholars opposing him—mostly from Qufu—claimed to defend economic freedom.
In practice, they were defending landlord interests."
"The policy passed under imperial pressure.
After Emperor Wu's death, Confucians, old clans, and new bureaucratic landlords struck back.
Sang Hongyang was executed.
Huo Guang joined the opposition."
"The monopolies survived in name—and became new tools of local exploitation."
"The Huo clan thus achieved a perfect fusion:
high officials, great landlords, and major merchants.
A fully evolved great clan."
"Third: the Imperial Academy."
"Paired with state-sponsored Confucianism, it trained future officials.
Emperor Wu even issued an Edict Encouraging Learning—practically begging scholars to serve."
"The Western Han academy remained modest.
Wang Mang, however, saw its potential—and expanded it enthusiastically."
"Thousands of dormitories. Markets. Granaries.
A proto-university."
"But in an agrarian age, full-time study is expensive.
The academy became the ideal networking hub for great clans."
"Its alumni included Liu Xiu, Deng Yu, and many of the Cloud Terrace generals."
"Ironically, it trained rebels—not ministers."
"As for Wang Mang's fall?
Too radical. Too archaic. Entirely out of sync with his era."
"Even Liu Xiu enjoyed little classmate loyalty.
Deng Yu disobeyed him more than once.
Then again—Nanyang elite. That explains a lot."
"Eastern Han moved its capital to Luoyang partly because it was closer to Nanyang.
That elite bloc became the dynasty's backbone."
"Land annexation was never solved.
Clans grew stronger each generation.
Weak emperors leaned on eunuchs."
"By the late Han, conflict devolved into eunuchs versus clans—new elites versus old."
"While the powerful fought with greasy mouths,
the common people starved."
"And so:
'The Blue Heaven is dead. The Yellow Heaven shall rise.'
Zhang Jiao prepared to draw the curtain on Han."]
In the Chengdu hall, no one spoke.
This was their Han dynasty.
Their chaos.
For the first time, they were seeing it explained from more than a thousand years later—cold, detached, merciless.
A silent war spanning two centuries.
Great families fighting for power. Emperors struggling to enforce reform. Every policy twisted into a new weapon for the "meat-eaters."
Two hundred years of struggle.
Who heard the people's cries?
Just like Dazexiang at the end of Qin—the peasants, trampled beyond tears, raised their hoes and struck at kings and ministers alike.
Liu Bei had prepared himself.
Still, words failed him.
Zhuge Liang said nothing.
This was the question they would one day face themselves.
How… should it be solved?