"Cotton fields?"
"Cotton can grow in the north too?"
The first person to latch onto those two simple words was Zhuge Liang.
After Wu Yi pacified Nanzhong and took up post in Yunnan, he encountered merchants from Shendu in Qinzhang County. Silk and ironware were traded for exotic goods from Shendu, among which was something that looked suspiciously like cotton.
The object was transported through Nanzhong to Chengdu, and from there eventually sent to Chang'an.
Lord Xuande had once summoned capable men to attempt experimental cultivation. After half a year of work, the harvested result only resembled the cotton seen in the future light screen by perhaps forty percent.
They knew from later generations that selective breeding could improve it, but whether the plant suited Huainan or Huaibei, preferred dry sunlight or damp shade, no one could say for sure.
The only certainty so far was that it came from Tianzhu. Judging from the maps, Tianzhu lay overall further south than China, so perhaps the plant favored southern coastal lands.
But Tianzhu stretched thousands of li from north to south. Its climates varied widely. Who knew where exactly this thing originated?
Although Lady Huang Yueying had gone to Chang'an to take charge of cotton cultivation research, Kongming still wanted to contribute something.
Lu Su tilted his head, thinking for a moment before memory stirred.
"This Nurhaci… I recall he was some kind of Dragon-Tiger General in the Ming northeast. And that Ming Huaizong seemed connected to him?"
"This matter should probably be mentioned to that Hongwu."
Kongming nodded. That seemed reasonable enough.
Once Cao Cao was defeated, perhaps they could find someone from Hebei familiar with Liaodong, ask about local customs, study the yin-yang balance of the land and climate, and infer where cotton might grow best.
Someone familiar with Liaodong…
Suddenly Kongming thought of Guan Ning, who had once fled trouble and lived there.
Before Lu Su even had time to pick up his brush, Zhang Fei had already scribbled furiously and tossed the message into the light screen.
"Why should the strategist bother with something like this?"
Lu Su laughed helplessly, shaking his head, then sighed.
"This Neo-Confucian learning rose amid warfare. Not easy at all. Though the Song favored civil governance and did raise plenty of mediocre officials, it truly did not lack great talents."
Zhang Fei looked unconvinced.
"What's the use? Could they talk Zhao Gou to death? Talk Temujin to death? What good is it?"
Kongming chuckled. He knew Yide did not actually despise scholars, he was simply venting as a military man who had seen the fate of the Two Songs.
So he answered calmly.
"The Song inherited Tang scholarship. Many of its scientific achievements followed Tang foundations."
"The Ming will likely inherit Song learning in turn. These men of great talent and long vision, their writings and teachings must surely benefit that dynasty greatly."
Zhang Fei straightened immediately.
"What the strategist says, I'll remember. If that Zhu Xi could be mourned so deeply by Xin Qiji, he must've been someone who actually did things."
"And that Zhang Zai… maybe his words were grand, but he really tried. That makes him a real man!"
"But giving land to the people means they won't starve. Such a simple truth really needs testing?"
The usually quiet Liu Bei snorted.
"Simple? If everyone understood such a simple truth, half the disasters of the last two thousand years would never have happened."
"You and I might well be drinking in Zhuo Commandery now, tending fields and living happily."
But when he looked up and saw what his sworn brother had written, he could only sigh.
"If you write like that, how is the Hongwu Emperor supposed to respond?"
---
[Server Chat Log]
[Zhang Fei: Hongwu Emperor, that Nurhaci is one of your Ming Dragon-Tiger generals. Huaizong's temple name seems to have been changed by him.
〖Zhang Fei: But you and him are separated by several hundred years, so you won't be able to fight him. A real pity.]
---
The Ming Son of Heaven had originally planned to write a polite reply after reading the first sentence.
After the second, his brush froze.
"I told you! That Huaizong temple name business really was changed by those barbarian bandits to insult us. Hah!"
Empress Ma found her husband's hesitation earlier rather amusing.
"That Marquis Huan lived over a thousand years before the Ming. Why take it so personally?"
"Not the same."
Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head, face tangled in emotion.
"When I first raised troops, I'd already heard tea storytellers recount the Three Kingdoms and the Song. I knew even Yue Wumu once wished to be as fiercely loyal as Guan Yu and Zhang Fei."
"While traveling through Henan and Huaixi, I also heard people say Marquis Huan was actually handsome, dignified, wrote beautiful calligraphy, and painted well. Very much a scholar-general."
"So how is he… like this?"
"Straightforward?" Empress Ma gently supplied the word.
"My lady understands me!"
"So why not simply ask him directly?"
"…That might actually work."
Zhu Yuanzhang considered, his brow gradually relaxing, though a trace of hesitation remained.
"I'm just worried it might be disrespectful…"
Empress Ma understood the concern. After all, in the memorial he wrote for his maternal grandfather, he had declared the duty to honor Huaxia. Zhang Fei counted as an ancestor of that civilization.
Still, she found the worry unnecessary.
"This screen of light is a strange thing. Who knows, the Marquis Huan writing these messages might not even be as old as you, Old Zhu."
For a moment, the Ming emperor could not decide whether to feel relieved or suddenly mournful at the reminder that time flies like a white colt past a gap.
In the end, he shoved those thoughts aside. The Ming's problems came first.
"This name… Nurhaci…"
He paced before the screen, murmuring, trying to pronounce it in familiar Mongol-style sounds.
After repeating it several times, he only grew more doubtful.
"The name carries some Mongol flavor, yet also feels different."
Empress Ma found that perfectly logical.
"The Yuan barbarians ruled for nearly a century. The tribes of Liaodong never cared much for civil culture. In a hundred years, mixing with Yuan influences was inevitable."
That made sense. Zhu Yuanzhang immediately thought of someone.
"Xu Da would know this better. I should mention it in a letter… no, better summon him back early."
In an instant he changed his mind.
Originally he had only planned to write because the map-and-war method shown by the screen seemed useful. But if what the screen said was likely true, the matter had to be taken seriously.
It was already August. Xu Da had been scheduled to return to the capital at year's end for policy discussions. If so, ordering him back a month earlier was hardly a problem.
Factoring in travel time, it was only a small adjustment.
No reason to hesitate.
"Xu Da should be recalled early."
Once that decision was made, Zhu Yuanzhang finally had the mental space to reflect on the other topics.
The transformations of the Two Songs, the endurance of Neo-Confucianism, he felt no deep emotion about them, only shook his head with a sigh.
As for Zhang Zai, he gave an extra remark.
"This Zhang Hengqu was a real man. Just stubborn."
Then, with a cold laugh touched by something harder to name, he added:
"These four lines are well said. Shame they only hang in temples. If the scholar-officials had followed even one of them, the Jingkang disaster would never have happened."
The remark was sharp, but Empress Ma knew it stemmed from lingering frustration over Hu Weiyong.
Still, Zhu Yuanzhang's will was strong. He quickly set the mood aside and remembered another name mentioned before Nurhaci.
"Li Zicheng killed corrupt Ming officials to redistribute land…"
"Was this Li Zicheng one of our Ming regional commanders?"
"Or a surveillance commissioner from some province?"