The lazy look Li Shimin had worn earlier was completely gone.
His instincts had been right.
Just… not in the way he expected.
A remnant Turkic force that had escaped destruction by sheer luck had spent three or four centuries recovering, only to rise again and consecutively defeat both the Arab Empire and the Byzantine Empire.
It was not incomprehensible. History loved these strange rebounds.
Still, the thought left him with a faint sense of irritation.
The Tang had been the one to drive that group west in the first place.
Yet now the world remembered the storm they later stirred, while Tang's role faded into the background.
Du Ruhui pondered for a moment, then asked Fang Xuanling beside him,
"If this account is accurate, does it mean the Ashina clan truly declined from that point onward?"
Fang Xuanling reread his notes carefully before nodding.
Neither of them cared much about the Abbasids or Byzantines.
They were simply too far away.
Even by sea, using the monsoon winds, a round trip would take more than a year.
At such distances, grand strategies were mostly fantasy. The principle of dealing with nearby enemies while befriending distant states remained the only sensible one.
If anything mattered, it was perhaps only what the later generations called "cultural exchange."
Thinking of this suddenly reminded Du Ruhui of Wang Xuance, and he wondered briefly whether the young envoy was safe at that moment.
Wei Zheng voiced what most people in Ganlu Hall were thinking.
"If the Ashina clan truly declined from then on, that alone would be fortunate for the Central Plains.
And this Wang Fangyi certainly deserves to be called a general of destiny."
From the Sui onward, wars between the Central Plains and the Turks had never really stopped.
Their emperor had once considered the Treaty of the Wei River a humiliation.
Even Emperor Yang of Sui, later mockingly remembered as a so-called divine ruler of extravagance, had endured the disgrace of being trapped at Yanmen Pass for thirty-two days.
The relationship between Sui, Tang, and the Turks was not identical to that between Han and Xiongnu, but it was not far off either.
So although no one knew what "Vatican" meant, they all knew perfectly well that Ashina was the royal surname of the Turkic Khagans.
From the time of Emperor Wen of Sui, countless schemes had been devised to weaken that clan.
No one had expected that in the end the matter would be settled simply by Wang Fangyi smashing them with force.
What fascinated the court even more was the historical chain shown by the later narrator.
If Wang Fangyi had managed to wipe out that fleeing remnant entirely…
what would Central Asia look like today?
Li Shimin stood behind the painter Yan Liben, watching as the increasingly favored court artist rapidly sketched the future map of Central Asia.
Then he suddenly remembered another strange phrase from earlier.
"What exactly does 'East Asian monster house' mean?"
"Hans drove the Yuezhi west, and they founded the Kushan Empire."
"Tang destroyed the Turks, and they went west to create the Seljuks."
Liu Bei chuckled at the nickname.
It sounded ridiculous, but also strangely fitting.
What stood out even more, however, was the shared temple title.
"Both were called Gaozong," Liu Bei said.
"But even with his faults, Emperor Gaozong of Tang far surpasses Emperor Gaozong of Song."
"Brother, why get angry?" Zhang Fei replied, waving a hand.
"The later generations already said it. Among emperors, very few push the limits of greatness. Most compete to break the limits of how low a human can go."
He said it casually, but as they watched the chaotic patchwork of Central Asian states on the screen, and saw how the Seljuks spent fifty years defeating powerful enemies and building a vast empire, Liu Bei still felt his blood stir.
He slapped Zhang Fei's arm, unable to help himself.
"When the affairs of the Central Plains are settled, why not march west and let the Han songs echo there too?"
Zhang Fei's eyes lit up instantly. He almost wanted to draft a military pledge on the spot and ask Liu Bei to sign it.
Meanwhile, Lu Su was studying the details with Zhuge Liang.
"This Seljuk ruler is called Sultan, not Khan?"
Titles were simple things. Later generations would not mislabel them without reason.
So the deeper meaning was worth thinking about.
Zhuge Liang narrowed his eyes.
"The Seljuks controlled the Arab state. They defeated Byzantium. And the Byzantine ruler is also called Emperor."
He paused, searching his memory, until a word surfaced.
"Islam?"
Lu Su thought for a moment, then shook his head.
"We have too little information. Let us instead see how this Liao ruler makes his name in Central Asia."
By now, it was obvious who the "elimination round survivor from the East Asian monster house" referred to.
The narrator's voice resumed.
[Lightscreen]
["In 1076, the Seljuk Empire captured Jerusalem."
"In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a holy war. The following year, the First Crusade began. After seizing Palestine, four Crusader states were established."
"By 1145, one of those states, Edessa, had fallen.
The bishop Hugh of Jabala traveled to Rome to seek aid, hoping Pope Eugene III would organize another crusade."
"To strengthen his case, Hugh not only exaggerated the Muslim threat, he also told the Pope a story."
"A story about a mysterious Priest-King named John."
"At the time, Bishop Otto of Bavaria was present and recorded the tale in his Chronicle."
"The story was simple. According to Hugh, far in the extreme East beyond Armenia and Persia lived a ruler named John. He was both priest and king, a devout Nestorian Christian."
"He had defeated Persians and Medes repeatedly in war and was revered as Priest-King John."
"He supposedly intended to march to Jerusalem in support of Christendom, but lacked ships to cross the Tigris River and had to turn back."
"According to legend, this Priest-King John was descended from the Three Wise Men of the Gospel of Matthew.
His dynasty had ruled the East for generations, wealthy, glorious, and always devoted to Jerusalem."
"This story, once told, was believed in the Western world for five hundred years."
"Explorers sailed the seas searching for Priest-King John.
Even the Pope once wrote him an enthusiastic invitation letter, hoping he would lead an army west and smash the infidels."
"The letter, of course, vanished without reply."
"Because in the East, nobody even knew where this Priest-King John supposedly was."
"In reality, the story was Hugh's creative interpretation after hearing that the Seljuk Empire was being violently beaten by a powerful state from the East."
"The real figure behind the legend was the founder of Western Liao."
"His name was Yelü Dashi."
"In 1120, Song and Jin formed the Maritime Alliance to destroy Liao.
Two years later, Jin armies moved south. Emperor Tianzuo proved hopeless, determined to collapse with the dynasty."
"Unwilling to become a subject of a fallen state, Yelü Dashi declared himself king and fled west with only two hundred cavalry."
"After eight years of building strength, he launched his western campaign and proclaimed himself emperor, taking the title Gur Khan and the Chinese reign name Tianyou."
"As his power expanded westward, in 1141, the same year Yue Fei died unjustly, Yelü Dashi clashed with the Seljuk Empire on the Katwan Steppe."
"Modern research suggests he had barely over seventy thousand people in total, including logistics. That was his entire accumulation from ten years of effort."
"The Seljuks fielded at least one hundred thousand troops, not counting support units."
"But anyone who survives the East Asian monster house knows that numbers alone decide nothing."
"Yelü Dashi's command in this battle was brilliant."
"Before the battle, he contacted the Karluks, who had long suffered under Seljuk pressure, and used them as bait."
"He lured a large Seljuk force into the nearby Dargam Gorge, using narrow terrain to cancel their numerical advantage, then executed a textbook hammer-and-anvil attack."
"Once the numbers no longer mattered, how could the Seljuk army possibly defeat a force that had fought its way out from the world's most brutal strategic arena?"
"The disaster at Katwan sounded the death knell of the Seljuk Empire.
Its prestige collapsed, the Sultan quickly lost control over Transoxiana, and the Western Liao Empire rose in Central Asia."
"In effect, this battle also shielded the Roman Church from eastern pressure."
"As for how Yelü Dashi became 'John'…"
"According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, his title Gur Khan was transcribed in Syria as Yuhanan.
Translated into Latin, that became Johannes."
"Yelü Dashi himself probably never imagined it."
"I'm a Khitan," the narrator laughed.
"How did I end up officially designated a Christian king?"]