Li Shimin swore—on his own conscience—that he held no personal prejudice against the Song dynasty.
But as an emperor who had carved his empire from horseback and bloodshed, he simply could not stomach this kind of groveling survivalism.
"So the Song had this so-called New Confucianism, didn't it?" he sneered.
"Confucians are meant to be guided, not bullied. Killed if need be—but never humiliated."
"Or is this 'New Confucianism' nothing more than a doctrine that teaches people how to bend their backs, swallow their pride, and cling to life at any cost?"
"Even Goujian endured humiliation only so he could destroy Wu in the end. But that Southern Song emperor—what did he learn? Nothing except how to live like Sun Quan, hiding behind peace and trembling in fear."
After staring at the glowing screen for so long, even Li Shimin felt its influence seep into his mood.
Empress Zhangsun gently tugged at his sleeve. Only then did he rein himself in and sit back down, though the anger still burned in his chest.
There was little left to argue.
The ministers of the Zhenguan court were unanimous.
"To endure these three humiliations is nothing less than national disgrace!"
"If such shame is not avenged, how can a state retain its dignity? How can loyal ministers and righteous men keep their faith?"
No one even needed to formally declare a stance.
Just two months earlier, they had captured the Khagan Illig alive and presented him in chains before the Ancestral Temple.
And so Li Shiji could not comprehend it at all.
"Where were the loyal generals?" he demanded.
"Where were the soldiers willing to die for their country?"
Wei Zheng was equally baffled.
"Did the Song truly have no upright, devoted ministers?"
There were no answers.
Only silence.
Eventually, the questions were set aside.
"The suffering of the people during the Jingkang disaster," Du Ruhui said quietly, "surpassed even that of the chaos of the Five Barbarians."
The hall fell into dead silence.
Everyone understood the euphemisms recorded in history—"lean old men," "young women," "children."
And because they understood, they found it unbearable.
Any court with even a shred of competence would never have allowed matters to rot to such an extent.
Fang Xuanling, however, noticed something odd.
"Jin barbarians?" he asked. "Not the Khitan?"
That question made everyone pause.
They remembered clearly—the Treaty of Chanyuan had been signed with the Khitan Liao.
Which meant only one thing.
"The northern wars never truly ended?" someone murmured. "Then why did they not gather their strength and reclaim Yan and Yun?"
All present were well-versed in military affairs. The more they thought about it, the less sense it made.
In the end, they could only console themselves weakly.
"Perhaps the Song's enemies were simply… exceptionally powerful."
When the topic turned to the Kong clan, Li Shimin snorted outright.
"I would never bestow upon the Kong family the title of Duke Yansheng."
During the Wude era, Confucius had been posthumously honored as Marquis of Praised Sainthood—merely continuing earlier titles such as Duke of Zou or Revered Sage.
It was symbolic. A courtesy. Nothing more.
Fang Xuanling shrugged.
"That the title of Duke Yansheng endured for later ages likely had little to do with the title itself."
After all, many dynasties had granted lofty posthumous honors. None had evolved into something like this.
As for why—
Even Fang Xuanling could not quite explain it.
The Chengdu Prefectural Office fell silent once more.
Liu Bei stared intently at the bone-chilling euphemisms displayed on the screen, committing every word to memory.
These were the sufferings the common people of later ages endured.
Now that he knew, he had to prevent them—if he could.
How?
For now, Liu Bei did not know.
But he believed his strategist would.
And besides—first eliminate the traitors and restore the Han. That path could not be wrong.
Zhang Fei was already vibrating with impatience.
"Big Brother! When do we tie up that Sun Ten-Thousand and force him to look at his glorious 'achievements'?"
"And when do we drag Cao the Traitor here, make him see what kind of fine descendants he raised—and what his precious Sima Yi did to create this plague of aristocratic clans?"
"Restore the Han already! This old Zhang wants to go smash some barbarians!"
His enthusiasm was met with cheers, none louder than Zhang Song's.
Leave Shu. Achieve merit. Repay his lord. Prove his worth to those who judged by appearances.
Liu Ba's thoughts were simpler.
Once, he had wanted to follow Cao Cao—believing Heaven favored him, hoping to lie flat and drift along.
But now?
The light clearly favored his lord.
With such an omen, the one destined to claim the realm was obvious.
So of course he would stay, apply his abilities, and follow Heaven's will.
After all, he too bore the surname Liu.
He might not despise the great clans with burning hatred—but he had never liked them either.
In hindsight, not going north to suffer under Cao the Traitor seemed like a blessing.
Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong, meanwhile, were focused on the Kong family.
"Generations submitting memorials of surrender?"
"An aristocracy of kneeling?"
The two exchanged a glance.
"It seems later generations held deep resentment toward the Kong clan—or rather, toward the house of Duke Yansheng."
"Excessive favor breeds resentment. They are merely Confucius' descendants, not Confucius himself. Why such indulgence?"
"Perhaps it was buying a horse by honoring its bones—seeking the loyalty of scholars. If all under Heaven are Confucians, then the Kong house becomes the symbol."
"After the Tang… did the civil examinations center entirely on Confucian learning?"
Their speculation went no further.
One reason was simple—the Song was too distant from their own era.
Another was more practical—without more information, conjecture was pointless.
What mattered now was catching up to the High Tang.
[ Lightscreen]
[The voice resumed, calm and unhurried.
So—were the great clans truly worthless?
The answer was no.
All things carried both benefit and harm. Aristocratic clans were no exception.
Because the Han Empire's grassroots administration had always been incomplete, the rise of powerful local families was inevitable. They filled vacuums of authority, unified local power, and became basic social units.
In their early phase, great clans preserved skills, cultivated scholarship, accumulated wealth, and stabilized entire regions.
They were the empire's blood pumps.
Free from hunger, able to pursue learning and merit, they formed the backbone of imperial governance and warfare.
But once they grew too strong, they changed.
Blood pumps became leeches.
They absorbed vast wealth into private estates, strangling mobility and suffocating popular creativity.
Families that never worried about food could produce refined art—
but little else.
Wang Xizhi, whose Preface to the Orchid Pavilion was later buried with Emperor Taizong, came from exactly such a house—the Wang clan of the saying:
"The old swallows before the halls of Wang and Xie."
History meticulously records the names of idle aristocrats of Wei and Jin.
Yet the craftsmen who truly improved daily life—who even made those aristocrats more comfortable—left behind no names at all.
The Han Lesser Treasury alone supervised thousands of weavers and tens of thousands of artisans.
From them came inventions of lasting value:
the distance-measuring drum carriage,
the dragon-bone waterwheel,
water-powered trip hammers,
seed drills,
patterned looms,
mechanical crossbow triggers,
siphons,
bellows.
And yet none of their creators are remembered.
Only one inventor's name survives.
The wife of Chen Baoguang.
She created the drawloom. Sixty days of work could produce a single bolt of brocade worth ten thousand coins.
And how was she recorded?
Simply as "Chen Baoguang's wife."
No surname.
No reward.
No recognition.
Anonymous.
Yet today, everyone knows the Western spinning jenny.
This is the limitation of aristocratic society.
Ambitious sons studied to seize power.
Idle ones pursued pleasure, art, or metaphysics.
And yet—China's ancestors began scientific inquiry very early.
Mathematics was revered as both the Mother of Science and the King of Science.
The Zhoubi Suanjing and the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Arts once led the world.
But even their authors dared not attach their own names.
They invented ancient sages—Shang Gao, Chen Zi—just to lend authority.
The Nine Chapters has no author.
The Sunzi Suanjing borrowed Sun Zi's name merely to survive.
Despite such foundations, from the Han through the Northern and Southern Dynasties, mathematical progress barely moved.
The few contributors—Liu Hui, Zhao Shuang, Zu Chongzhi, Zhen Luan—were either unrelated to great clans or marginal within them.
Only after the Sui, when the aristocratic system truly collapsed, did mathematics advance again.
And in the Song—
after the great clans vanished—
the wisdom of the common people finally stepped onto the stage.
What followed was a brilliant flowering of science and culture.]
In both the Ganlu Hall and the Chengdu Prefectural Office, eyes remained fixed on the screen.