The map from later generations unfolded before Zhao Kuangyin like a silent yet magnificent scroll.
More than three hundred years ago, a Tang general named Wang Fangyi had fallen upon that canvas like a drop of thick ink, spreading outward into a grand and intricate picture.
A Tang general achieved merit and carved out ten thousand li of territory.
The Turks fled in panic, escaping to the farthest west.
Over three centuries, a single remnant force stumbled forward, growing bit by bit, until at last it swept across its new lands, defeated powerful enemies, captured rival rulers, and stood dominant in its region.
Until finally it encountered the Khitans, who had failed in their own struggle for the Central Plains.
And… Zhao Kuangyin thought back on it.
Those Khitans really might not have been weak at all.
Later generations had not described the Maritime Alliance before the fall of Northern Song in much detail.
But judging from how the Song campaign against Liao to seize Yanjing had looked like a farce, it seemed clear that Liao had truly fallen to Jin, not to Song.
And then there was that man, Yelü Dashi.
Two hundred cavalry riding west, and within barely a decade he had restored a state, marched westward, and defeated the Turkic Seljuk power.
He truly deserved the later praise as a heroic ruler of his age.
Naturally, Zhao Kuangyin reached a conclusion.
"The Khitans are indeed fierce."
He turned calmly, looking at Master Kongjiong, who was swaying there with two dark circles under his eyes. The monk oddly resembled those giant pandas later generations seemed to love so much.
Seeing the emperor looking at him, Zhao Guangyi spoke cautiously.
"Did not elder brother once say the Khitans were a formidable enemy?"
"What I said was that they are a formidable enemy now. I never said they cannot be defeated."
Zhao Kuangyin glared at him and emphasized each word.
"In the sixth year of Xiande, when I commanded the land and naval forces, I defeated several thousand Khitan elite cavalry at Mozhou. I know their strength well."
"And because of that, you, with my elite imperial troops in hand, still left behind the disgrace of the donkey carts at Gaoliang River. Truly…"
For a moment the Song emperor found himself short of words.
Zhao Pu sighed along with him.
"It truly beggars belief."
After steadying his mood, Zhao Kuangyin added flatly,
"If you possessed even thirty percent of Yelü Dashi's ability, perhaps later generations would have far fewer reasons to criticize you."
"Elite soldiers and fine generals all lost in your hands. Two battles shattered your courage. Even the weakness of the army began with you."
As he spoke, Zhao Kuangyin's expression remained unusually calm.
Looking at Master Kongjiong's shiny bald head, he even seemed faintly amused.
"What can you do?"
What can you do?
Zhao Guangyi fell silent.
He turned the prayer beads in his hand twice, yet still found no answer.
Yes, he coveted his brother's throne.
But then what?
Strengthen the people, build the army. He knew none of it.
Break enemies on the battlefield. He understood even less.
That Yelü Dashi had started with two hundred riders, built strength for over ten years, and then stood face-to-face with a dominant regional empire and crushed it in battle.
To Zhao Guangyi, that sounded like mythology.
For once, a trace of confusion crept into his heart.
…
"Yelü Dashi. Western Liao khan. Priest-King John."
Li Shimin repeated the name and the unfamiliar terms, and suddenly his mind rearranged them into a new title.
"Khan John?"
Empress Zhangsun could not help laughing.
"What sort of title is that?"
Li Shimin was entirely unconcerned.
"You do not know, Guanyinbi. Hundreds of years later, there is a Ming emperor called the Yongle Emperor."
"And that Yongle Emperor even had a foreign name."
As he spoke, he took up brush and paper, trying to recall it, and slowly wrote the foreign word "Judy."
Then he looked up at the projection again and copied Yelü Dashi's foreign rendering, "Johannes," in equally awkward strokes.
This produced a simple curiosity in the Tang emperor.
"I wonder what foreign name later generations would give me."
Empress Zhangsun clasped his hand.
"Since Your Majesty is admired by posterity, they surely would not let you suffer any indignity."
That seemed reasonable.
Li Shimin nodded. He believed that.
But these were trivial matters.
Soon his attention shifted to the more striking terms.
"Pope. Bishop. Eastern expedition."
A phrase later generations often used when speaking of Daoism and Buddhism surfaced in his memory, and he arrived at a guess.
"This 'Pope'… could it mean a religious emperor?"
Du Ruhui understood even more clearly.
"I fear the western nations all honor this Christianity above all. Thus their Pope's authority may even exceed that of kings."
Fang Xuanling added cautiously,
"Perhaps only in this way could dozens of states of varying size unite under the banner of holy war and march east together."
The two chief ministers spoke carefully, yet nearly everyone in Ganlu Hall agreed.
After all, the map made things plain.
Even the Southern Song, often described by later generations as merely holding a corner in peace, possessed territory large enough that, placed in the west, it could be divided into roughly ten separate countries.
The vast Roman Empire that later generations said once treated the Mediterranean like a bathtub had already vanished, leaving only something called the Eastern Roman Empire.
The rest of the coastline was crowded with states whose names revealed nothing: the County of Sicily, the Kingdom of Croatia, the County of Toulouse, the Hammadid dynasty, and many more.
Chu Suiliang, whose eyesight was the sharpest, studied the map closely and then pointed at it.
"Could this Papal State be the place later generations called the Vatican?"
Among all the western countries, only this one's name clearly revealed its nature, so the guess seemed natural.
To carve land in the name of religion and command many states through it…
Li Shimin felt that after Rome's decline, the far west had clearly taken a completely different path.
Thus the Tang emperor made a decision.
"The Court of Diplomatic Reception shall establish a new office. Gather those skilled in languages, record western texts, learn their customs, and observe their people."
[Lightscreen]
[Two years after the Battle of Katwan, Yelü Dashi died at the age of fifty-seven and received the temple name Dezong.
Looking across his life, Yelü Johannes had lived through the tripartite rivalry of Song, Liao, and Jin, the fall of Liao, the brief restoration of Northern Liao, and finally, faced with Emperor Tianzuo's hopeless collapse, chose to ride west.
In the end he successfully founded Western Liao, carried Chinese civilization into Central Asia, and defeated the Seljuk Empire head-on, opening an entirely new political landscape there.
Placed in world history, he was unquestionably a figure of towering significance.
Even his posthumous reputation was colorful.
Christian writers gave him the identity of Priest-King, claiming he longed for the Church and wished to make pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Persian historians claimed Yelü Dashi had secretly converted to Islam.
Arab historians, meanwhile, labeled him a follower of Manichaeism.
From the perspective of world history, after Gao Xianzhi's defeat at Talas, the Chinese cultural sphere had lost its voice in Central Asia.
Three hundred ninety years later, Yelü Dashi's western campaign finally expanded that influence there once more.
Judging purely by achievement, Yelü Dashi alone could drag both the Song and Jin rulers into comparison and still come out ahead. Calling him a great man of his age is no exaggeration.
And Wang Fangyi's Battle of Rehai still had not finished rippling through history.
A hundred years after the Seljuk Empire's fall, a group of Anatolian natives claiming descent from the Oghuz Turks founded a world-famous empire: the Ottoman Empire.
Four hundred years later, Persia's Afsharid dynasty rose.
Its founder, Nader Shah, came from the Afshar tribe, itself descended from the Oghuz Turks.
Yet the man who set off this thousand-year butterfly effect, Wang Fangyi himself, met a far less fortunate end.
The year after the Battle of Rehai, Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi died.
Wu Zetian, ruling from behind the court, began purging opponents after the anti-Wu rebellion tied to the Prince of Luling, and swept up political enemies from the earlier struggle over replacing Empress Wang.
The chancellor Pei Yan was executed.
Cheng Wuting was accused of colluding with him and beheaded in the army.
Wang Fangyi was implicated as well.
As a relative of Empress Wang, he was condemned, exiled to Yazhou, and died on the road.]