Zhu Yuanzhang had been only half paying attention at first.
As for the Yuan history, since so many of the names were tongue-twisters and the palace intrigues and power struggles all blurred together, he usually skimmed those parts. Battles, however, were another matter entirely. He never treated military affairs lightly.
Because of that, he knew far more about Cao Youwen's campaign than what was shown here. After Fu Youde pacified Sichuan, he had even visited the old battlefield at Jiguan Pass himself and submitted a memorial reviewing the Mongol invasion of Shu.
So while the narration about the battle drew only cursory attention from him, his focus drifted instead to the truly astonishing elements on display.
Maps so vivid they moved as if alive, obeying commands like a man's own arm.
Scenes that made it feel as though one had personally stepped onto an ancient battlefield.
If such miraculous maps could be used by him, unifying the realm might be finished at least two years earlier.
And those rosy-cheeked youths… in Yingtian Prefecture, matchmakers would have trampled their doorsteps flat.
But soon enough, these wandering thoughts snapped back into place.
On the screen, with Cao Youwen's death, the Mongols withdrew, heading west into Shu. The field was left littered with bodies.
Then, as light and darkness began to flicker rapidly across the image, grass sprouted from the earth. Several shadows flashed past like ghosts, and small burial mounds appeared one after another.
Empress Ma saw through it first.
"This looks like… the passage of time."
Only then did the Ming emperor realize that the alternating brightness and shadow were day and night racing past. He also noticed a number ticking rapidly below.
It started from the 1200s, climbed into the 1600s, then the 1700s. The digits spun too quickly to follow before finally slowing near the year two thousand.
As the scene continued to shift, he watched the greenery fade. Low thatched huts were built, then fell to ruin. Roads crawled across the land like serpents, only to be swallowed again by wild grass.
A troop of soldiers, somewhat resembling Ming troops, marched from west to east, laughing loudly as they passed. Zhu Yuanzhang instinctively guessed that this might be when Fu Youde returned in triumph after pacifying Shu. After all, he had announced an attack along the Jinniu Road but ultimately entered Shu from the western route.
But he barely had time to think further.
More huts and low walls appeared. A small town began to take shape, only to be crushed again when a group of soldiers with shaved foreheads and long queue braids stormed through, once more moving from east to west, their expressions eerily similar to those of the former Yuan "barbarians."
The Ming emperor's heart tightened.
As the numbers advanced again, he saw a long column of soldiers carrying red flags embroidered with white rays. They marched from west to east with proud, upright bearing. Their clothing and equipment were unfamiliar, yet he could still sense their poverty. But the expressions on their faces felt strangely familiar.
They looked just like the young men who had once come alone from every corner of the land to enlist in his own campaigns against the remaining Yuan forces. The same belief burned in their eyes.
"Resisting the barbarian invaders…" he murmured softly, too quietly for anyone else to hear.
The numbers surged forward again, and what followed was utterly different.
A crowd of jubilant people worked day and night, laying down iron tracks that stretched like a dragon from east to west deep into Shu.
A long iron carriage sped along them, carrying people and goods back and forth.
The faded greenery returned. The repeatedly trampled land was leveled again. Green shoots broke through the soil, stubbornly pushing upward until at last they burst into golden blossoms.
As the view rose higher, it revealed fields of flowers stretching for hundreds of li, wrapping around the railway that cut across the land. Beside it, a small city had risen from the earth. Looking north, the earliest burial mounds had long since vanished into the sea of blossoms.
Staring at the large building beside the tracks with the three characters "Yangping Pass" written on it, the Ming emperor remained silent for a long time.
Finally, he exhaled.
"…It's beautiful."
Empress Ma nodded as well, momentarily at a loss for words.
By now, how could they fail to understand? What the screen showed was the transformation of this battlefield across centuries. Whether true or false, such methods were close to the work of spirits.
But what occupied the emperor's mind was something else entirely.
"If what it implies is true… then all my efforts ended up useless? Did the barbarians conquer China again?"
Zhu Yuanzhang never believed the Ming would truly last ten thousand generations. Anyone who read history knew that the rise and fall of dynasties was ordinary enough. Still, he had always thought his Ming would be different from the previous dynasties.
Passing on the throne for a hundred generations did not seem overly greedy.
So why did it seem to last only three or four centuries?
And even if later descendants ruined the country, it should at least have been replaced by another Han dynasty, just as the Song replaced the Tang or the Tang replaced the Sui. How could it be that once again barbarians in foreign dress entered Shu?
That was what he found hardest to accept.
This time, Empress Ma did not even need to speak. Zhu Yuanzhang began muttering to himself.
"No… perhaps this thing is meant to disrupt our dynasty's mandate. Once we find Luo Guanzhong and Liu Sanwu and confront them, we'll know the truth."
But despite his words, his eyes never left the screen's breathtaking landscape.
Watching the sea of flowers sway in the wind, watching people in strikingly bold clothing strolling through the blossoms, he could not help sighing again.
"Why can't my Ming govern the land into a scene like this?"
Empress Ma comforted him gently.
"If it is real, and this youth truly praises Your Majesty so highly, then perhaps those later armies that rose from Shu were following the example of the Hongwu Emperor, marching north to sweep away the barbarians and restore the Han order."
"But their clothes didn't look like Han dress either," Zhu Yuanzhang grumbled, though inwardly he knew that the people frolicking near the flower fields did not look like barbarians either.
Empress Ma ignored his stubborn refusal to concede. She simply smiled.
"If it's beautiful, then look a little longer. Truth or falsehood can wait. When Luo Guanzhong arrives and you question him, you can worry then."
She understood her husband well. Whether this vision proved true or false, the man this youth called the Hongwu Emperor would not be spared from toil and concern.
---
[Lightscreen]
[Cao Youwen's death was a tragedy. He was one of the very few Southern Song generals who dared to fight the Mongols and Jin in open battle and could actually win.
But in truth, his death was also the inevitable tragedy produced by the national policy, set since the era of Zhao Er, of civil officials controlling the military.
Among the Shu commanders of that time, aside from Cui Yuzhi, a rare statesman who possessed both strategy and courage, the rest from Zheng Sun to Gui Ruyuan to Zhao Yanna were essentially competing in mediocrity. Not one of them was worth mentioning.
This ties back to what we discussed earlier. After scholar-officials of the two Song dynasties took control of both civil and military power, their greatest flaw was an excessive naivety in military strategy.]