"That Xin Qiji becoming famous for poetry… he really was forced into it."
The people inside Ganlu Hall could not help but sigh a little at that.
Ever since the chaos at the end of Sui, heroes and opportunists alike had risen everywhere. Deciding whom to serve was never a trivial matter.
Men like Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui had it comparatively smooth. One voluntarily joined, the other was recruited from former Sui service. Their partnership with the future emperor could be called harmonious from beginning to end.
But for men like Wei Zheng, Chu Suiliang, Yuchi Jingde, and Qin Qiong, watching Xin Qiji struggle to use his talents stirred a private sense of relief.
After all, they themselves had once served the wrong banners. Some had followed Xue Ju, some Liu Wuzhou, some Li Mi. One misstep and they might not be standing here today.
Among them, Qin Qiong felt it most strongly.
Looking back, he had first served Lai Hu'er, then Zhang Xutuo, then Li Mi, then Wang Shichong, and only afterward entered the Prince of Qin's household.
Yet His Majesty had entrusted him with command of the cavalry and later the post of Right Third Army Commander.
In just four years he had helped defeat Song Jingang, crush Dou Jiande, intimidate Wang Shichong, and suppress Liu Heita. He gained great merit, great fame, and the title Duke of Yi.
Compared to Xin Qiji, he truly counted himself fortunate.
The realm shattered, beset by internal strife and external threats.
A man might have the will to mend heaven and the courage to break enemy formations.
And still spend his life writing sorrow instead of changing history.
Under such comparison, Qin Qiong even felt a touch of self-reflection.
He had promised to lead troops once his health recovered and relieve the emperor's worries. Now his old injuries had mostly healed. Qinghai was pacified again. Gaochang still blocked trade routes.
Why not set out now?
Nearby, Chu Suiliang paused in his copying work, looked up at the poems hanging in the hall from the flourishing Tang age, then tasted the flavor of Xin Qiji's verses and praised them.
"These poems of Xin Qiji… his years grow late, yet his spirit does not. There is something of the frontier poetry's boldness in them."
That stirred Du Ruhui's curiosity.
"This later generation seems to dislike Northern Song civil officials. Yet those scholar-officials still dared to go to the front lines. Surely some battlefield writings survived from the army."
"As for Southern Song… I wonder if any other literati there could write of war."
The name Lu You surfaced faintly in his memory. He wondered what fate that man had met.
While the ministers sighed, Li Shimin sighed as well.
"How did Zhao Gou manage to live to eighty-one?"
The unspoken meaning was obvious.
Everyone in Ganlu Hall knew their own Heavenly Strategy General had died at fifty.
And from Li Shimin's own perspective, he still had many regrets.
Liaodong had been won, yet Goguryeo remained unconquered.
Western Turks were weakened, yet not submissive.
The crown prince had been replaced, and Li Zhi had only been trained for a few years. His bearing as ruler still lacked grandeur.
In short, if he had lived just three or five years longer, some disasters might have been avoided.
Empress Zhangsun smiled gently, pulled her still-unsettled husband closer, and squeezed his hand.
"Your Majesty restored the legacy of the Former Han and rebuilt civil governance. You healed the wounds left by Sui's chaos. How many burdens did your heart carry?"
"Rising early, resting late, never a peaceful morning. You worked yourself like the Marquis of Wu and left illness behind because of it."
That immediately brightened Li Shimin's face, though he still tried to appear modest.
"I… I cannot compare with the Marquis of Wu."
He sighed.
"Shu lacked talent, so he bore everything himself."
"But my Tiance Mansion… who among them was not a genius of the realm?"
The entire hall burst into laughter, hands raised in congratulations.
At the side, Sun Simiao curled his lip slightly. He very much wanted to say that illness should be treated as illness, and had little to do with how busy one was.
But seeing the harmony between emperor and empress, he only shook his head and returned his gaze to the light screen, a faint expectation rising in his heart.
If he remembered correctly, that Song Ci fellow was from Southern Song too, wasn't he?
"We finally get to see this poem in full!"
Liu Bei sounded faintly excited.
From the light screen's perspective, people seventeen centuries later still regretted the fall of Shu Han. Now, seeing Southern Song's plight clearly, seeing Xin Qiji's frustration, the feeling was entirely different.
He seemed to see a youth singing with sword in hand.
A young man leading fifty banners south through dust.
A loyal heart offered to the throne.
White hair ending a lifetime of ambition.
More than twenty years trapped in frustration, yet in dreams he still marched north to restore the land.
He wondered if, when Xin Qiji climbed the tower in his sixties, he ever remembered Liu Bei himself once lamenting the fat growing on his thighs from idleness.
Now Liu Bei sat in Luoyang, the old capital restored, able to calmly ponder the question: who in the world can rival its heroes?
But could Xin Qiji ever fulfill his life's ambition?
"Through a thousand ages of rise and fall, how many things?
The endless Yangtze rolls on."
Zhuge Liang waved his fan and sighed in admiration.
Even Lu Su smiled.
"When the Han enterprise is accomplished, I will surely compose something like this to record it."
Zhang Fei burst out laughing.
"Then Strategist Lu better hurry. Yours will definitely be better than what later folks butchered."
"Butchered?"
"Yeah, I remember a couple lines… hmm…"
Zhang Fei thought for a moment and recited:
"A son should be like Sun Zhongmou.
At Hefei he sent a hundred thousand men to their deaths."
"Who in the world can rival its heroes?
Red Cliff… ah, big brother, don't hit me!"
Seeing his lord leap up and chase after the flapping-armed General Yide, Lu Su stared in utter shock.
[Lightscreen]
[Unexpected, or perhaps entirely expected, Xin Qiji soon lost his position as prefect of Zhenjiang.
The reason was simple.
He clashed with Han Tuozhou.
It sounded almost absurd.
Han Tuozhou was desperate for a northern campaign to secure his name in history. Xin Qiji had once submitted the Ten Discourses on Meiqin at twenty-six, openly urging Zhao Gou to launch that very expedition.
Two pro-war figures.
And yet they conflicted.
Xin Qiji did not support the Kaixi Northern Expedition. He even declared, "To campaign against Jin, we need another twenty years."
Being pro-war is not absolute.
If your support is not absolute, then to some people that means you are absolutely against war.
Censors impeached him. He was dismissed once more.
His call to delay the expedition was not because he had suddenly turned cautious like Zhao Gou. The larger reason was that Xin Qiji had discovered a serious flaw in his own earlier proposals.
First, it must be said that the Ten Discourses on Meiqin was unquestionably one of the greatest military works of the Two Song.
Its ideas for northern recovery were astonishingly advanced.
He proposed launching uprisings from Sichuan, Xiangyang, and Huai West to draw Jin's attention. Meanwhile a naval force would sail north along the coast and strike directly into Shandong.
This would allow a thrust straight toward the Yellow Dragon stronghold, while also coordinating with southern armies to encircle Jin forces.
Land-sea coordination of this sort was extraordinarily rare in the ancient world.
He also suggested selecting sharp-minded civil officials to serve in the army as advisers. They could attend councils and explain strategic goals to soldiers, but must never interfere with command decisions. Otherwise it would repeat the Tang disaster of eunuch supervisors meddling in the army.
The system almost resembled political commissars.
He even boldly proposed reforms to court structure and military organization, offering the concise maxim:
Planning should involve many minds.
Decision must rest in one.
It sounded suspiciously like a primitive form of democratic centralism.
He also judged Jin's decline with remarkable precision, offering reasoning that almost felt philosophical:
When men lack success, they risk death to gain wealth and rank. Once they possess wealth and rank, they cling to life and fear risk.
From the perspective of history, we know he was right.
The speed at which the Jurchen aristocracy of Jin decayed was impressive even by historical standards.]