[Lightscreen]
[There was, in fact, a small but deliciously ironic detail behind the fall of Gaochang—one best appreciated with a map in hand.
First, a reminder:
The Silk Road was never a single road.
Calling it "a road" was like calling the sea "a puddle." In the Western Regions alone, it split neatly into three: the northern route, the central route, and the southern route.
By the late Sui dynasty, the southern route was already dead.
Not conquered.
Not plundered.
Just… buried.
The cause was recorded personally by Xuanzang after his return.
Ni Rang City had been swallowed whole by the desert. The remaining population clung to life beside a marsh barely three or four li wide. Traveling through it was possible—if one had a strong will, weak lungs, and no sense of self-preservation.
This Ni Rang was the Jingjue Kingdom of the third century.
Its end had nothing to do with war.
The water disappeared.
The oasis vanished.
The land turned to sand.
History's most unsentimental executioner: climate.
With the southern route gone, only the central and northern routes remained.
And fate, being economical, ran them uncomfortably close together.
Then, in the fourth year of Zhenguan, Yiwu on the northern route surrendered to Tang without even putting up a show.
At that moment, Gaochang's geopolitical role underwent a tragic transformation.
It stopped being a country.
It became a throat.
A very narrow one.
And instead of swallowing politely, Gaochang chose to bare its teeth at Li Shimin.
At that point, conflict ceased to be a matter of diplomacy and became a matter of anatomy.
The campaign against Gaochang was, in truth, almost entirely Li Shimin's personal initiative.
In the twelfth month of Zhenguan thirteen, the emperor ordered Tang cavalry west.
The court objected unanimously.
Too far.
Too expensive.
Too troublesome.
Too everything.
The official history records the outcome of this fierce debate with elegant brevity:
The Emperor did not listen.
In the eighth month of Zhenguan fourteen, Gaochang ceased to exist as a political entity.
Then came the argument over what to do with the corpse.
Wei Zheng opposed permanent occupation. The main culprit was dead; loose rein administration would suffice. Garrisoning troops, he argued, would drain the treasury and kill morale.
He went further, predicting that of every hundred soldiers stationed there, seventy or eighty would die.
Chu Suiliang agreed. Set up a puppet king. Take his son hostage. Call it governance.
Once again—
The Emperor did not listen.
History would later judge this as one of the very rare moments when the entire Zhenguan court collectively got it wrong.
At the time, Tubo was rising fast.
Had Gaochang not been taken first, Tang's window into the Western Regions would have slammed shut—possibly forever. Reopening it later would have cost ten times the effort. Possibly a hundred.
Because Gaochang fell, everything afterward felt effortless.
Yanqi's protectorate followed.
Kucha collapsed.
The Four Garrisons of Anxi appeared.
The Western Turks' fate became a matter of scheduling.
Later, Cen Wenben submitted a memorial so enthusiastic it should have come with a towel:
"The pacification of Gaochang relied on two men alone. One was His Majesty's far-seeing vision. The other was Hou Junji's mastery of warfare. All other ministers merely obstructed."
Wei Zheng's prediction of mass death, for once, failed to cooperate with reality.
In Zhenguan sixteen, Guo Xiaoke passed through Gaochang as governor of Xizhou and recorded that the garrison soldiers were, to his visible disappointment, perfectly content.]
Du Ruhui didn't need to turn around.
He could already imagine the emperor's expression.
Sure enough, Li Shimin's voice drifted from behind him—gentle, warm, and far too pleased with itself.
"Xuancheng," the emperor asked kindly, "in your opinion… should Gaochang have been destroyed?"
The tone suggested curiosity.
The subtext suggested victory lap.
Wei Zheng responded without flinching.
"Your Majesty, since we already know the Gaochang ruler intends to come pay tribute next year, discussing this now seems… academically interesting, but politically inappropriate."
Li Shimin nodded.
Then smiled anyway.
After all, being right was pleasant.
Being right against everyone else was exhilarating.
Being proven right a thousand years later was borderline addictive.
Hou Junji was smiling so hard his face hurt.
Destroying a state was the lifelong dream of most generals. To have history itself stamp Approved on it in advance—how could he not feel lightheaded?
For one dangerous heartbeat, Hou Junji even wondered whether sabotaging Gaochang's tribute mission might improve his résumé.
The thought was promptly buried.
Nearby, Li Jing remained impassive.
Li Shiji, feeling mildly robbed, changed the subject.
"And Tubo, Your Majesty?"
Li Shimin's smile faded a fraction.
"That matter," he said, "requires patience."
Reports described Tubo's land as hostile—thin air, strange sickness, men growing weak without wounds. Later generations would call it altitude sickness, but for now it was simply inconvenient geography.
Still, if the opportunity arose, he would strike.
Some grudges aged well.
Du Ruhui broke the mood.
"Your Majesty, there is a problem."
He pointed to the Lightscreen.
"The record claims a famine in Zhenguan three prompted the court to permit civilians to seek survival on their own, which led to Xuanzang's departure. But while Xuzhou suffered drought and locusts, the Turkic war had ended. There was no famine."
Li Shimin froze.
Then understood.
History had diverged.
No famine.
No decree.
No monk slipping westward under cover of chaos.
The hall fell silent.
Chengdu.
Far away in Chengdu, the decision regarding Gaochang stunned the prefectural court.
"One year," Liu Bei murmured. "A state destroyed in one year."
His heart stirred.
"Great Tang truly bears the air of the mighty Han."
He thought of Yiling. Eight months of war, ending in disaster.
Hanzhong and Yi Province—years of struggle and heavy loss.
Compared to that… Li Shimin's war felt unfairly efficient.
Zhang Fei muttered, "Let's just hope this Tang emperor doesn't age like Emperor Wu of Han."
The Lightscreen shifted again.
[Lightscreen]
[ The road Xuanzang would later take was not untraveled.
It had been tested—during one of the most chaotic years in Chinese history.
The year was 399.
The world had not gone mad — it had simply shattered.
South of the Yangtze, Eastern Jin still called itself an empire, ruling from Jiankang and insisting the north was merely "temporarily occupied."
North of the river, that word meant nothing.
Later Yan was bleeding.
Northern Wei was rising.
Later Qin and Western Qin were grinding each other down like millstones.
In the east, Southern Yan clung to legitimacy like a cracked seal.
Along the frontier, warlords came and went so fast their reigns barely deserved names.
Eight banners flew in the same year — not because the land was large,
but because no one was strong enough to clear the board.
Zhang Fei stared at the screen.
"Eight countries… in one year?"
He frowned.
"So whoever grabbed land first got to call himself emperor?"
Even Zhuge Liang pressed his fingers to his brow.
"No wonder later generations curse the Sima clan," he said quietly.
"They lost the realm so thoroughly that history itself fractured."
[Lightscreen]
[That same year, amid this disorder, a monk set out from Chang'an.
His name was Faxian.
He crossed the Western Regions, entered India, and traveled through more than thirty states.
He collected Buddhist scriptures.
He avoided wars when he could.
And after fourteen years, he returned alive.
At Dunhuang, a local governor supported him.
That governor was Li Gao—
later enthusiastically adopted by Li Shimin as an ancestral figure.
History, it seemed, enjoyed ironic symmetry.
Faxian recorded his journey in Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms.
Five years after returning home, he passed away quietly.
But his name did not.
The Lightscreen shifted.
Blue sea.
Endless horizon.
A small reef barely broke the surface of the water.
White warships cruised nearby.
Text appeared below:
"Faxian Reef is inherent territory of our nation, over which sovereignty is indisputable."]
Pang Tong nodded.
"A monk who sought truth abroad in life,
and guards the frontier in death.
History even promoted him."
The image pulled back to a map, thick lines tracing coastlines and seas.
Zhuge Liang studied it quietly.
"These lines… they're later borders."
Liu Ba sighed.
"So close to that great island—and yet not taken."
Zhuge Liang answered softly, almost to himself:
"A thousand years pass.
Servants devour masters.
Foreigners bully lords.
Even the sea changes hands."
The screen changed again.
[ Lightscreen]
[Xuanzang followed because Faxian had proven it possible.
But where Faxian was cautious,
Xuanzang was relentless.
Nalanda.
Debate.
Victory.
He defeated scholars.
Silenced rival schools.
Translated scriptures.
Even rendered the Dao De Jing into Sanskrit.
He wrote Great Tang Records on the Western Regions—
a book that would later allow India to rediscover its own past.
History, as always, collected interest.
Today, beside Da Ci'en Temple in Chang'an,
Xuanzang's statue stands facing south—
as if watching the Great Tang itself,
still brilliant enough to reach him across a thousand years.]