"This… how is this any different from Cao Cao?"
Inside Luoyang, Zhang Fei could not sit still. He got up, paced twice, and still could not vent the frustration in his chest, so he simply began firing off questions one after another.
"When the realm falls into chaos and a man raises troops, his aim should be to bring peace to the people!"
"With this kind of indulgence, no wonder they lost the hearts of the people of Yizhou, and righteous armies rose against them!"
Zhang Fei naturally had no reason to vent at his elder brother or the strategist, so he faced the light screen instead.
The screen, of course, gave him no answer.
Liu Bei wordlessly slapped his thigh.
He remembered the fertile lands of Yizhou, a thousand li of abundance. Though its people lay far from the capital, when they heard the realm was in danger, they still offered up their lives without hesitation. How many families had handed their sons into his care, hoping only that he could one day bring the world the same peace Yizhou once knew.
Later generations would say that three million Sichuan soldiers fought the invaders, with hundreds of thousands buried far from home. That alone showed the spirit of that land.
But precisely because he had personally walked the Jinniu Road, Liu Bei also understood just how defensible Yizhou was.
If the Central Plains fell into chaos, ambitious men would always try to seize Yizhou and carve out independence.
If the Central Plains were pacified, then Yizhou would likely be the last place to settle.
As for how to solve the Yizhou problem…
Liu Bei turned to Kongming.
Zhuge Liang blinked, then immediately guessed:
"My lord is thinking of following the later generations' method. Use cement to build a broad road linking Yizhou directly to Guanzhong?"
"Kongming knows me well."
Zhuge Liang waved his feather fan.
It was not surprising the lord had such thoughts. Ever since they finalized the cement formula using iron slag, the first places it was applied were the Jinniu Road, the Baoxie Road, and the Qishan route.
The main surface was still rammed earth, but dangerous sections were reinforced with timber frames filled with cement. With such repairs, the Shu roads remained passable even in heavy rains, instead of collapsing entirely.
But if one talked about galloping freely across them…
That was still difficult.
Still, Zhuge Liang sighed.
"This would be… a marvel. But for now, impossible."
Borrowing a phrase often used by later generations, he shook his head.
"My lord's idea is indeed necessary for truly governing Shu well. But the manpower and resources required are far beyond what we can afford at present."
At the end of the day, if later records were correct and volcanic ash existed only around Zhuyai, then producing cement in the Central Plains meant relying on slag.
But manpower was limited, iron production itself was not abundant, and without iron, where would enough slag come from?
To realize the lord's plan, there were only two options.
Find massive iron deposits, mine them nationwide, establish large smelting bureaus, produce iron for tools and engineering, and use the slag for cement.
Or build a fleet, sail to Zhuyai, and see whether volcanic ash could be harvested there.
Either way, the prerequisite was obvious.
The realm had to be unified first.
Liu Bei clearly understood. He nodded, and his gaze hardened once more.
---
On the other side, Lu Su looked amused.
"Yide, you do not question those Zhao brothers instead?"
"Heh…"
Zhang Fei shook his head and sat down again.
"What good would it do if I cursed them?"
"That Zhao fellow's reputation for 'indulgence' spreads a thousand years before and a thousand years after him. Everyone within two millennia knows he tolerated generals who massacred cities and sheltered a cannibal relative. Later generations will probably repeat it for another ten thousand years as a warning."
"If I scold him now and he ends up feeling pleased about it, what then?"
Zhang Yide spoke calmly, surprisingly organized:
"Better that I return to Zhuojun, recruit sons of the Han surname Zhao into the army, and lead them myself."
"We'll follow the example of the Champion Marquis and water our horses in the Hanhai. That way everyone wins."
---
[Lightscreen]
[From the Duanzheng campaign into Luoyang to the death of Cao Youwen marked the first phase of the Song–Mongol War.
Then came Meng Gong's triple defensive lines against the Mongols, and Yu Jie's mountain-fortress network in Shu.
One figure cannot be avoided in all this: Emperor Lizong of Song.
Because when people speak of famous Southern Song generals, they often compare Meng Gong with Yue Fei.
Yue Fei was suspected and murdered by his own court.
Meng Gong, by contrast, enjoyed Lizong's trust and commanded the empire's defenses for nearly fifteen years. The comparison naturally invites sighs.
However, Song histories also note that Meng Gong was not purely defensive.
In 1246, a Mongol official in southern Henan named Fan Yongji offered to defect to the Song. He even proposed helping them recover Henan and voluntarily sent his son as a hostage to show sincerity.
Meng Gong was overjoyed.
But the Southern Song court was still dreaming that the Mongols would not march south again. They failed to understand that the Mongols' temporary ceasefire merely marked the end of the first phase of the war.
So Lizong ultimately rejected Fan Yongji's surrender.
Meng Gong was said to have coughed blood in anger, lamenting, "Thirty years preparing to recover the Central Plains, and now my ambition cannot be fulfilled." Within half a year, he died of illness.
Fan Yongji, having been rejected, was soon exposed and executed by the Mongols.
Seen this way, even if Yue Fei had known of Meng Gong, he probably would not have envied him much.
Another topic often discussed about Lizong is his temple name.
Most Song emperors had unusual temple names. Aside from Taizu, Taizong, Gaozong, and Xiaozong, the others used names unseen in earlier dynasties, such as Zhenzong, Renzong, Shenzong, Yingzong, Zhezong, and Qinzong.
At first glance it looks chaotic. But temple names did not strictly follow posthumous naming rules, and the Song dynasty certainly never lacked scholars, so most had classical origins.
Take Emperor Shenzong of Song.
If judged by posthumous naming rules, "Shen" could imply that the people could not define him. But in the Analects, Confucius praised Yao, saying his greatness was beyond naming. For the ancients, Shenzong was actually an exclusive epithet of Emperor Yao and thus highly positive.
Another example is Jin Aizong. His temple name was once also Shenzong. If the name truly carried negative meaning, it would not have been stripped from him later.
Similarly, Zhezong derived from the phrase "philosopher kings of the Three Dynasties," while Yingzong came from "the heroes of the Three Dynasties."
Comparable cases exist elsewhere. For example, Ming Huaizong's original temple name Sizong came from the phrase "reverent, bright, cultured, thoughtful," one of the Four Virtues in the Book of Documents.
Thus, some claim that Neo-Confucianism flourished under Lizong, and that scholar-officials therefore gave him the temple name Lizong. That interpretation is likely selective at best.
Southern Song records say that when debating his temple name, candidates included Jing, Chun, Cheng, Yun, and Li.
The court initially chose Lizong with the character for ritual.
But someone pointed out that Jin Aizong's private temple already used that name, which was considered inauspicious. So they switched to the homophonous character meaning principle.
As for Lizong's fondness for Neo-Confucianism, that was actually the least important factor.
By Lizong's reign, Neo-Confucianism had already taken a severe political blow and was still recovering. The idea that it could dictate an emperor's temple name is pure fantasy.
If one looks for the moment when Neo-Confucianism was strongest in the Southern Song, it was during the later years of Zhu Xi.
At that time Zhu Xi, an academic superstar, connected with the retired emperor Emperor Xiaozong of Song and managed to unite various intellectual schools under the Neo-Confucian banner, preparing for reforms.
But what happened next is well known.
The empress of Emperor Guangzong of Song stirred up trouble, Guangzong himself lost stability, and Xiaozong died in grief without support.
The reforms that might have changed the fate of the Southern Song died before they were born.]