Inside Ganlu Hall, the atmosphere was not tense, not solemn, not even particularly thoughtful.
It was, in fact, the kind of mood people get when they are watching history repeat itself badly and can do nothing except comment on it.
Li Shimin lazily rotated the cup in his hand, staring at the surface of the tea as if hoping it would reveal a more competent dynasty inside.
"The Southern Song court…" he muttered slowly, clearly choosing his wording with care,
"…is rather… particular."
Which, translated from emperor-speak, meant: they are doing everything wrong but in a strangely methodical way.
Empress Zhangsun could naturally hear the tone beneath the words.
After all, Song inherited Tang in name and ruled Han lands. Its people, if traced back a few generations, were still Tang subjects in blood and culture. No one in this hall actually wanted to laugh at them.
The problem was that Song made it very, very hard not to.
Northern Song had been disappointing. Southern Song somehow managed to be worse.
If one examined it seriously, the situation was almost absurd.
The dynasty had plenty of capable generals. Even more famous ministers. It held barely half of Tang's territory, yet its registered population exceeded Tang's. Its industry, craftsmanship, weapon manufacturing, and economic strength were all respectable.
And yet none of it worked.
Which was honestly more impressive than failure caused by weakness.
At that moment, Empress Zhangsun shifted slightly closer and spoke softly.
"The Southern Song is mocked by later generations for preferring safety over recovery. That is not without reason."
She paused, then added with deliberate calm:
"If the ministers are correct, and if the northern people truly rose and destroyed Jin themselves… would Song still deserve to rule the realm?"
Li Shimin's eyes lit up instantly.
This was a question he actually liked.
"If such a figure arose," he said without hesitation,
"then after destroying Jin, he would naturally march south and unify the world."
Of course he would.
History had rules. Dynastic legitimacy had rules. Power had very clear rules.
If someone else liberated the north while Song hid behind rivers and paperwork, that person would not kneel politely and hand the world back.
Empress Zhangsun smiled faintly.
She knew that look.
Her husband was once again imagining himself dropped into this chaotic era, personally conquering everything out of sheer irritation.
"The rulers of Song and Jin both make me lose my appetite," Li Shimin grumbled.
"If I could tie them both to the ritual mound and deal with them properly, how wonderful that would be."
Yes, definitely imagining conquest.
She squeezed his hand gently.
"Then Your Majesty must ensure your descendants do not repeat their mistakes. Leave behind governance worthy of the Zhenguan era."
Li Shimin snorted.
"Song studied Qin and Han. It learned from Tang. It even had Northern Song as a direct warning example."
"And the result?"
"The one who wanted to rival Qin Shi Huang and Han Wu became Yang Guang."
"The one who lost the north and hid in the south lives comfortably."
He clicked his tongue.
"Later generations…"
He wanted to say more, but ultimately shook his head and fell silent.
At that moment a familiar deep voice cut in.
"That Song ruler does not live comfortably. Did he not end up castrated?"
Li Shimin did not even need to look up.
Only Yuchi Jingde would say something like that so bluntly in this hall.
Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui were too restrained.
Zhangsun Wuji had grown cautious after learning of his own future fate.
Qin Shubao was always disciplined despite being a warrior.
The Yan brothers were perpetually busy.
Which meant only one person would answer Yuchi Jingde directly.
Sure enough, Wei Zheng spoke immediately, voice full of disdain.
"And what of it?"
"Does Zhao Gou becoming a eunuch revive loyal ministers? Does it restore lost territory? Does it save the country?"
Silence followed.
Because that was the kind of question that did not invite a clever reply.
Li Shimin leaned back slightly.
Conquering the world had been easier than managing ministers.
Honestly, if he could ride at the head of the Xuanjia cavalry again, campaign north to destroy Jin, then test blades against Mongol horsemen…
The Tang emperor, long removed from battlefields, suddenly felt an itch he could not scratch.
Meanwhile, the light screen above continued narrating history in its usual merciless tone.
[Lightscreen]
[The year 1162 was a turning point.
Jin's massive invasion army retreated in defeat. Southern Song stood at a crossroads.
Xin Qiji's fifty cavalrymen captured a traitor general, but that alone could not save the Shandong resistance from collapse.
Zhao Gou, seeing that his strategy of obediently appeasing Jin was no longer sustainable, decided on a different approach.
He stepped back and pushed Zhao Shen forward as emperor.
Put more bluntly, he changed the face of the throne to calm the pro-war faction.
Zhao Shen, known later as Emperor Xiaozong of Song, was Zhao Kuangyin's seventh-generation descendant and came to power carrying strong pro-war expectations.
Unfortunately, Southern Song's pro-war camp had already been crippled.
Zhao Gou and Qin Hui had spent twenty years suppressing them.
Yue Fei was dead.
Han Shizhong had retired.
Wu Lin and Liu Qi were elderly.
Zhang Jun had been repeatedly demoted.
The balance of power was no longer balanced at all.
Which made the debate before Emperor Xiaozong between Shi Hao and Zhang Jun extremely consequential.
Shi Hao, the right chancellor, argued in the most irritating way possible. He did not actually address strategy or timing or logistics. He simply nitpicked definitions until Zhang Jun wanted to flip the table.
Zhang Jun eventually skipped him entirely and submitted a memorial directly to the emperor.
If we keep arguing like this, the opportunity will pass. Your Majesty must decide.
Perhaps Xiaozong was persuaded. Perhaps the left chancellor Chen Kangbo pushed strongly. In any case, the pro-war general Shao Hongyuan really did receive authorization to deploy troops.
And he received it without going through the full administrative process.
Shi Hao was furious.
If military orders do not even need approval from the right chancellery, why am I still prime minister?
He complained privately to Chen Kangbo:
You want to accept northern defectors. I fear they will one day bring trouble to the imperial descendants. Zhang Jun is obsessed with war. If he fails, the emperor may never again hope to recover the Central Plains.
Historically, Shi Hao was considered a fairly competent chancellor.
But this statement made one thing painfully clear.
To the peace faction, northern resistance fighters were not compatriots.
They were liabilities.
After the disastrous Longxing Northern Expedition, Shi Hao's caution was praised as wise statecraft. His reputation improved greatly.
No one asked what the so-called defectors thought.
After Northern Song fell, Wang Yan formed a resistance army whose soldiers tattooed the words "With loyal hearts we repay the nation, we swear to kill the Jin bandits" across their faces. They became known as the Eight-Character Army and fought fiercely across Henan and Shaanxi.
During Yue Fei's campaigns, resistance groups across the Taihang Mountains responded to his call, to the point that Jin authority south of Yanjing effectively collapsed.
If those were old stories, then consider the present moment.
At the time Shi Hao made that remark, nearly half of the 160,000 troops defending the Huai River line were northern defectors.
When Wanyan Liang invaded south, uprisings erupted across Hebei and Henan. Coastal recovery of Haizhou and Chuzhou depended on Wei Sheng and Li Bao's desperate resistance, plus reinforcements from Wang Youzhi's forces coming from Henan.
For over thirty years after Northern Song's fall, northern Chinese had bled and died for Southern Song.
And in return, the chief minister summarized them in one sentence:
They may endanger the emperor's descendants.
This was not just prejudice.
It revealed something deeper.
Back during the Shaoxing peace treaty, the clause "Southerners return south, northerners return north" had already wounded northern resistance groups once.
Twenty years later, history offered another chance.
The good news was that northern fighters still rose again and again, willing to die.
The bad news was that Southern Song remained perfectly consistent in treating them as expendable.
This mindset effectively stripped Song of the moral authority to claim leadership of the Chinese world.
It reduced the dynasty to something closer to a regional regime.
Southern Song's problems were often blamed on lack of horse-raising lands, Mongol expansion, logistical disadvantages, or weapon limitations.
Those were all real issues.
But they were solvable.
A shrinking sense of legitimacy was not.
That was a disease with no cure.]