Inside the inner hall of the Bianliang palace.
Zhao Kuangyin flicked his sleeve lightly, as if the earlier exchange had never happened, then turned back to discuss state affairs with
Zhao Pu.
"What if," Zhao Kuangyin said in a tone of casual speculation that was never truly casual, "once the Khitan are subdued, we establish a northern capital at Youzhou? Lock down Liaodong from there."
Zhao Pu showed no objection.
Hebei's importance needed no explanation.
As for the black-soil plains of Liaodong that later generations praised endlessly, those lands alone could sustain armies for decades.
Plant a heavy garrison in the north, guard Hebei from within, seal the Yan frontier from without. It was not ambition. It was simply the logical next step.
Still, while discussing strategy with the emperor, Zhao Pu's eyes kept drifting sideways.
Because beside the throne sat a monk.
A monk with a freshly shaved head.
A monk with a very obvious bruised eye.
A monk currently glaring at the emperor with all the restrained fury of someone who had lost both rank and hair in the same week.
Zhao Pu's lips twitched upward before he could stop them.
This Master Kongjiong truly misjudged things. Just because he had entered the monastic order, he assumed the emperor could do nothing to him.
Did he forget how this very emperor had risen before founding Song?
It was not through philosophy lectures.
It was not through gentle persuasion.
It was through campaigns. Discipline. Victories stacked one after another.
The emperor might now be reasonable.
That did not mean he had always been reasonable.
Or that he would remain so forever.
"Ze Ping?"
The emperor's voice snapped Zhao Pu back to attention.
He bowed immediately.
"Now that Southern Tang has fallen, the northern campaign should be planned sooner rather than later."
"Once Taiyuan is secured, Hebei will stabilize. Once Youzhou is secured, the Yan region settles. Establishing Yanjing as a northern command center is inevitable."
Zhao Kuangyin nodded, satisfied.
Meanwhile elsewhere.
Liu Bei let go of his lingering worries about that Tang emperor for the moment and sighed instead.
"Qiji… Qubing. It seems Song men still remember the Champion Marquis."
His gaze drifted somewhere far away.
"I recall that during Northern Song, some scholars claimed that even if a general recovered You and Yan with ten thousand troops and drove the enemy beyond the desert, the honor would still not equal placing first in the civil examinations."
He shook his head slowly.
"And now that the rivers and mountains lie broken…"
He did not finish.
He did not need to.
Everyone present understood.
They still remembered how certain Song literati had once slandered great generals with ink and arrogance. If asked whether they felt warmth toward Song as a dynasty, the answer would be complicated at best.
Yet looking at Southern Song now…
An emperor trading away dignity.
A loyal general executed.
Territory surrendered.
People abandoned.
Every part of it felt like national humiliation carved into history.
Yue Fei had once stood on the brink of becoming the northern people's Champion Marquis.
And that made the whole situation feel almost unreal.
After a quiet sigh,
Lu Su shifted the topic.
"This Jin emperor can write poetry?"
Liu Bei thought for a moment, recalling the fragments later generations had left behind.
"Then perhaps this Jin ruler belonged to the faction hoping to abandon tribal customs and embrace Han governance?"
"And perhaps defeat led to internal instability in Jin?"
They had too little information to be sure.
Zhuge Liang instead evaluated from a military perspective.
"If those six hundred thousand troops were real… then such a campaign would end only one of two ways."
"Either victory… or death."
[In the Book of Posthumous Titles, the title Yang describes rulers who indulge themselves, neglect ritual, defy Heaven, abuse the people, and love grand projects that ruin governance.
In modern terms, being called a Yang emperor meant one thing.
You could be incompetent.
But you had to be spectacularly incompetent.
Many Yang emperors shared similar traits. Excessive desires. Private indulgence. Grand ambitions paired with poor execution.
Yet strangely, most of them also had decent literary talent.
For example, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the famous "Jade Tree, Rear Courtyard Flower" was written by
Chen Shubao. Later,
Du Mu referenced it in the line about singing the song of a fallen kingdom across the river.
Then there was
Yang Guang, whose poems about frontier clouds and tide-carried stars still circulated. Modern scholars often even considered him a representative poet of the Sui era.
Wanyan Liang was similar.
Before even taking the throne, he wrote lines like:
"If the great bow rests in my hand, the world fills with clear wind."
When he resolved to campaign south against Zhao Gou, he wrote:
"Ten thousand miles of script and carriage unified as one.
How could Jiangnan stand apart as another realm?"
In terms of ambition alone, the comparison with Zhao Gou was brutal.
Wanyan Liang also left behind the famous lyric "Snow, to the tune of One Hundred Characters." Even southern scholars admitted its brilliance.
Yet as said earlier, lofty vision and poor execution often came together.
After Yang Guang died,
Li Shimin once summed him up with a sharp verdict.
"He became a laughingstock of the world."
Wanyan Liang's reputation followed a similar path.
Later generations even jokingly called him an "Anti-Jin Hero," nicknaming him Zhao Liang.
The reason was simple.
He seized the throne through regicide.
Then purged rivals ruthlessly.
The descendants of major founding generals.
The families of those who helped conquer Northern Song.
Prominent noble clans.
One after another, he eliminated them all.
If measured purely by how many Jin elites died because of him, even Yue Fei might have had to admit defeat.
His policies were just as radical.
Earlier, Jin had attempted to cultivate the northeastern black soil thanks to a favorable climate. Later the policy was abandoned.
Wanyan Liang reversed that.
He wanted a unified realm, shared culture, one system of rule.
When Jurchen nobles resisted, he simply moved the capital south, destroying the old base at Shangjing Huining and shifting power to Zhongdu Yanjing and Nanjing Bianliang.
The upheaval inside Jin was enormous.
Under such conditions, his forced southern invasion had almost no chance of success.
And it was precisely in such chaos…
That Xin Qiji would finally test his blade.]
Hearing the nicknames Zhao Liang and Zhao Gou,
Li Shimin murmured thoughtfully.
"The inversion alone is… remarkable."
He reread Wanyan Liang's poems silently, then nodded.
"This Zhao Liang has talent."
A pause.
"But useless."
From the imperial throne, Li Shimin understood clearly what qualities a ruler required.
Calligraphy and poetry were pleasant refinements.
They were not the foundations of a state.
Beside him,
Du Ruhui spoke slowly.
"If Jin's great army marches south, Hebei's resistance will rise."
"Caught between internal revolt and external war, Jin must falter."
"And that… is how Qiji earns his name?"