[Lightscreen]
[With that, Marshal Yue's story comes to a temporary close. Next time, we will talk about a child who was born during his fourth Northern Expedition.
Before ending this episode, however, I want to briefly discuss the Jin Dynasty, a regime that holds a rather special place in Chinese history.
From Qin and Han down to the Qing, spanning over two thousand years, if we calculate carefully, the Jin was the only agrarian dynasty to be completely and thoroughly destroyed by a steppe nomadic power.
When the Mongols destroyed Jin, they did not rely on other states' military strength or institutional reforms. It was, from beginning to end, a conquest powered purely by the steppe. That alone makes it unusual. Strip away the surface, and Jin's underlying weakness becomes quite obvious.
After Yue Fei's fourth Northern Expedition, Han Chang's theory about the shift of strength between north and south was built upon one premise: the rapid corruption of Jin's elite class.
The campaign known as "Searching the Mountains and Scouring the Seas" was, in many ways, the last flicker of Jin's vigor. After that, the Meng'an Mouke elite began enjoying the spoils of having destroyed the Northern Song.
Conquer Western Liao? Destroy Southern Song? Eliminate Western Xia?
Why bother, when staying home to feast and revel was far more comfortable?
"I fought wars my whole life. Can I not enjoy myself for a bit? Music, dance, keep it going!" as Liu Bei once joked.
Small wonder then that Wanyan Wuzhu's Huai West campaign successfully deceived the Southern Song. There were plenty within Jin who, like Zhao Gou, only wanted wealth and security. They understood his mindset perfectly because they shared it.
Beyond that, Jin's political immaturity and its chronic lack of a stable ideology also contributed to its abrupt collapse.
Take Yelü Yudu as an example.
A Khitan imperial clansman and general of the Liao, he was pushed into rebellion by Emperor Tianzuo's reckless decisions and defected to Jin. To prove his loyalty, he even became a leading force in the destruction of his own former state.
Such a figure should have been crucial for Jin in winning over the Khitan population. Instead, the Meng'an Mouke elite ignored his achievements. No rewards. No recognition. No trust. Worse still, they attempted to forcibly relocate the Khitans to Liaodong to farm, driving Yelü Yudu into rebellion once more and further damaging relations between Jin and the Khitans.
The Jurchens of Jin originated in Liaodong, rooted in fishing and hunting culture. Without Khitan support, they had little capacity to manage the steppe. The result was that the Mongols rose almost without resistance.
Did the Khitans not see a new nomadic power emerging on the grasslands?
Of course they did.
But while they might once have had affection for Great Jin, Great Jin never returned that affection. Under such circumstances, the Khitans had no qualms about serving as the Mongols' vanguard and turning their blades back toward Jin.
As for ideology, the lesson is simple. Looking back to Sui and Tang, when they extended influence into the steppe, they often relied on a blending of Hu customs and Han traditions. Han-acculturated nomads and nomad-influenced Han worked together, combining strengths. The result was what later thinkers described as a civilization with cultivated spirit and hardened physique.
Early in Jin's history, the Sinicization faction was purged by Wanyan Wuzhu. In the end, Jin leaned toward Han practices while clinging stubbornly to old Jurchen customs, inheriting the weaknesses of both rather than their strengths. The result was a spirit untamed and a body softened, and eventually the fall of the state.
If we widen the lens further, Jin once had an extraordinary opportunity.
Originating in Liaodong, its six capitals over time included Zhongdu at Yanjing, Shangjing in modern Heilongjiang, Dading Prefecture in present-day Inner Mongolia, and Dongjing in Liaoyang. All were located in or near the Songliao Plain.
Climatically, this period also coincided with the last one hundred and fifty years of warmth before the onset of the Little Ice Age, nearly identical to the climate of the early Tang.
The Songliao Plain hardly needs introduction. One of the world's three great black soil regions, among the most fertile lands on earth, one of humanity's most precious agricultural resources. In recent years, modern legislation even moved to protect it. In rarity and fertility alike, it stands among the world's finest.
Compared to the Ukrainian Plain or the Mississippi Plain of the same era, the Songliao Plain lay closest to the heartland of Chinese civilization and was comparatively easier to develop.
At the time, Jin had in fact solved the key obstacles to developing this land.
Through warfare, they resolved the awkward position of the region as a crossroads of farming, fishing-hunting, and nomadic civilizations. Through conquest and forced migration, they alleviated population shortages.
They also happened to benefit from a rare warm period, sparing them from the worst of the region's extreme cold for nearly a century.
Modern archaeology has uncovered over a hundred Liao and Jin era fortresses across the black soil region, evidence that development had indeed begun.
Yet internal political instability, shifting centers of power, and later Emperor Xuanzong's southern relocation to Kaifeng under Mongol pressure ultimately cut short these efforts.
In governing agriculture, Jin could not match the Southern Song. In uniting nomads, it could not match the Mongols. Even in managing steppe peoples, it lacked the sophistication later seen in the Qing.
Its destruction was, in the end, unsurprising.]
…
Inside the palace hall at Bianliang, the broken chair leg struck flesh again. The dull impact traveled straight up Zhao Guangyi's spine and into his skull, forcing him upright despite himself.
As he raised his head, he saw a long string of glowing words sweep across the light screen.
[Server Chat Log]
[Zhang Fei: Bah! Even a rat wants its fur and a dog guards its home. Yet the deeds of your Zhao Song are worse than beasts. You witless brat who gnaws on filth. When I left Zhuo Commandery, I should have dragged your ancestors out as well. Had they died fighting bandits in Xinye or Xuzhou, that might have counted as a good deed for your future people!
Zhang Fei: Zhao Da, if you cannot properly deal with that swine-born brother of yours, then at least tell me who your Han ancestors were. As General Who Conquers the Barbarians, I will simply change your surname to Wanyan. It will save later generations the trouble of remembering what to call you!
DarkSoil: "Sick burn, General Zhang! A bit of a slow reaction time, but I'm following!"
HugePing: "Upvoted! I don't even understand half those insults, but they sound glorious."]
Zhao Guangyi read it without difficulty.
Every word was clear. Every insult precise.
His face flushed red almost instantly. Several curses rose to his throat, ready to burst out, only to be forcibly suppressed when another blow landed across his back.
What escaped instead was a pained howl.
"Ah… Elder Brother, that butcher Zhang Fei is insulting you!"
Zhao Kuangyin ignored him entirely. He delivered two more solid strikes, beating the strength out of Zhao Guangyi's wailing before speaking at last.
"The Marquis of Huan's vocabulary for scolding is somewhat lacking."
With that, he tossed aside the chair leg and rolled his shoulders. The agitation in his chest seemed to have dissipated along with the shattered furniture.
Then he turned to Zhao Pu as if nothing unusual had occurred.
"The climate chart shown earlier by those future people. Do we still have it?"
Zhao Pu nodded. Without glancing at the mess on the floor, he stepped to a shelf near the attendants, retrieved a thin sheet of paper, and presented it.
Ruler and minister bent over it together, studying the temperature decline around the transition from Northern to Southern Song, brows furrowed as they spoke in low tones.
Liu Han, standing to the side, processed things a little slower.
He glanced at the glowing insults signed by Zhang Fei, then at the Prince of Jin sprawled limply at the emperor's feet.
A cold realization crept over him.
If one followed the implications of those curses…
Had the Prince of Jin truly seized the throne?