Zhao Yun restrained himself with great effort from looking at his lord knocking Zhang Fei on the head.
Kneeling to one side, he sighed softly to the military strategist beside him.
"Tang and Han… how alike they are."
At Zhao Yun's sigh, Kongming silently nodded.
After all, they were separated by only four hundred years.
And when it came to governing a state, under normal circumstances one would naturally look to successful precedents.
The Tang's methods of military conquest might have been learned from an age of chaos, but in matters of civil governance, they clearly took much from the Han.
Yet recalling the eerily familiar causes of decline, even Kongming could not help but sigh again.
There was no need to imitate even the downfall so precisely…
"Zilong, in the northern lands, do you know of anyone skilled in breeding and raising horses?" Kongming asked.
Zhao Yun shook his head honestly.
"Under General Gongsun, there were horse officials, but for the most part they had nothing to do with what later generations would call selective breeding or conservation."
"Their duties were limited to caring for the horses and treating livestock illnesses."
Kongming tapped his own forehead and laughed.
"I forgot—General Gongsun chose horses with coat color as his foremost criterion."
But whether it was General Gongsun, who could command vast herds yet selected only white horses,
or the Li-Tang emperor who could leave seven hundred thousand horses to his sons,
they were all figures one could only envy.
Yunchang had seized several thousand fine horses during the Battle of Xiangfan, and now treated them like priceless treasures.
On Yide's side, he was still waiting for Han Sui and Ma Chao to deliver the first agreed batch of horses.
Even together, the two groups amounted to fewer than ten thousand—before the figure of seven hundred thousand, they could only look up in awe.
…
In the Ganlu Hall, Li Shimin suddenly rose to his feet.
"After defeating the Turks, how many horses did we obtain?"
Fang Xuanling paused briefly to recall, then replied,
"Just over seventy thousand were entered into the imperial studs."
Of course, the Eastern Turks possessed far more horses than that. But since the intent was to rule them, some measure of benevolence was required—it was impossible to seize everything they owned.
Thus the final tally of confiscated horses amounted to only this number.
Li Shimin calculated briefly, then felt deeply satisfied.
"Who would have thought that Great Tang would possess such talent!"
"Compile these principles of horse breeding into a volume. Tomorrow, I will personally write to Zhang Wansui."
As he spoke, Li Shimin deliberately added,
"An old friend of Jingde—able to leave his name in the annals of history through talent alone. Truly a fortunate thing!"
Yuchi Jingde's emotions grew even more complicated.
Had he not been reminded, he truly would have nearly forgotten that man.
Ten years earlier, when Song Jingang was defeated, Yuchi Jingde and Zhang Wansui had surrendered to His Majesty together.
He himself relied on martial valor to shine brilliantly; as for Zhang Wansui—despite many campaigns and recorded merits, his name was nowhere to be seen.
Later, he heard that Zhang Wansui had volunteered to go tend horses. He had thought that the two men, once under the same banner of Song Jingang, had drifted apart.
Who could have imagined…
That quiet, taciturn young general had personally laid the foundation for a flourishing age.
After reminding Yuchi Jingde, Li Shimin gazed again at the words "a wise ruler for half a lifetime," and his feelings were likewise complex.
Judging solely from the number of horses, this so-called Taixuan Prosperity was not as unbroken and enduring as previously imagined.
It was more like this: the imperial heir inherited the Zhenguan foundation, yet squandered much of it; by the time Emperor Xuanzong took over, what he received was a Great Tang whose national strength had been halved.
And the result…
"Of all things, the easiest is to win on the battlefield."
This was the Tang emperor's sigh.
Several generals in the Ganlu Hall who had once been defeated and later surrendered to Li Shimin nodded in agreement.
After all, you won—so however you wish to put it, you may.
Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui understood why Li Shimin sighed twice. They exchanged a knowing glance and thought of their respective sons.
They, too, silently nodded together.
Who could say otherwise?
Yan Liben felt a surge of blood rush through him.
If he could have entered officialdom directly, he would never have deigned to do so through technical skill.
Though he now found painting quite agreeable, why was it that he simply could not stand the expressions on these men's faces?
The sighing lasted only a moment. The horse-loving Li Shimin soon sank into eager imaginings.
"If we were to conquer the Western Regions, I wonder whether Zhang Wansui could breed for me hundreds of thousands of Ferghana horses?"
Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui had finished their sighing; matters that needed to be done still had to be recorded.
"We must consult the Ministry of Revenue on this."
"Or perhaps inquire directly with the Court of State Agriculture?"
"The Court of State Agriculture would be more appropriate."
The two nodded and noted the matter down.
[Lightscreen]
[During the reign of Gaozong, one disastrous consequence of the collapse of horse administration was that the army lost its capacity for rapid response.
It was still that same battle of Pei Xingjian's three hundred thousand men. Though the Tang forces outnumbered the Turks several times over, they still fought clumsily and with great difficulty—one of the reasons being insufficient cavalry.
Later, because Chancellor Pei Yan distorted the facts, two tribal leaders were executed in Chang'an. As Pei Xingjian had predicted, the Turks and the Tang ended up completely at odds.
Year after year the Turks came, changing directions as they raided and plundered, gambling that the Tang army simply could not respond in time.
It was not until more than twenty years after Li Zhi's death that Tang general Zhang Renyuan finally tired of this endless game of hide-and-seek. He revived the Han-dynasty beacon system and made more scientifically grounded improvements, giving rise to the suspended pavilion-style beacon tower.
This type of beacon tower could be seen as a small building constructed atop a low earthen tower—much like today's water towers. Access was only possible via rope ladders, so that even if attacked, the beacon soldiers stationed above could cut the ladders and ignite the fire to send a signal.
Zhang Renyuan also improved the beacon signaling system, requiring neighboring towers to exchange signals at dawn and nightfall: one fire for peace; two fires upon hearing alarm; three fires upon seeing dust and smoke; and upon sighting the enemy, burning bundled firewood.
Within a span of three hundred li, Zhang Renyuan constructed eighteen hundred beacon towers. Only then did Shuofang finally achieve peace. The Turks dared not cross the border, and Shuofang was even able to disband tens of thousands of soldiers, saving vast expenditures.
Relying on the beacon system, a signal could be transmitted from Liaodong to the Western Regions in a single night. Beacons may be called the finest means of communication before the age of wireless transmission… one of them, at least.
For example, during France's Napoleonic era, someone, inspired by beacon towers, incorporated cryptographic methods to create what was then considered a highly advanced communication tower.
Still similar in concept to beacon towers, signal towers were built every five kilometers. These did not burn fire; instead, a T-shaped crossbeam was erected atop the tower, with a movable arm suspended from each end and controlled by ropes.
Each arm had seven possible angles, and the crossbeam itself could shift between two angles. In theory, this signal tower could thus display ninety-eight different configurations.
Its operating principle was similar to beacon towers: observe the shape displayed by the nearby tower, then imitate it and relay it to the next station.
The personnel transmitting the signal did not need to know its content. Once the message reached its destination, a designated communications officer would decode it by consulting a codebook.
The advantage of this system was that the signalers themselves need not know the message—they only needed to copy the shapes.
The greatest advantage, of course, was transmission speed. In theory, a signal could traverse one thousand kilometers within twenty minutes.
This apparatus was soon further improved. For example, towers built in Austria used electric lamps, transmitting signals at night in a manner similar to Morse code.
Later still, someone had a sudden inspiration and integrated telescopes—devices that required only glass—allowing the distance between towers to be increased, thereby reducing costs.
Before long, however, the telegraph was invented, and such signal towers were quickly rendered obsolete.]
Kongming could not help but marvel once more at the ingenious ideas of later generations.
The image projected on the light screen—said to be a codebook—made Liu Bei's head spin, but Kongming and Fa Zheng quickly grasped its essentials.
Kongming was somewhat uncertain.
"It seems to be derived from mathematics…"
Fa Zheng, meanwhile, gazed upon the described system with longing.
"To transmit orders a thousand li within a single shichen—this would be formidable indeed."
Even Zhang Fei's expression grew solemn.
"If beacon fires are used as signals, they are only effective at night, which is highly inconvenient. During the day, burning smoke consumes much and easily triggers false alarms. Simply changing this…"
As a commander, Zhang Fei understood this most keenly.
On the battlefield, out of fear of signal confusion and distortion, one could rely only on smoke, conveying signals as simple as possible.
Advance. Retreat. Victory. Defeat.
But if, five hundred li apart, one could accurately convey, "Fan Qiang, dash north for a hundred li, then sweep west fifty li and strike hard at the enemy's rear," the effect would be entirely different.
"Yet these foreign scripts seem rather simple to transmit," Fa Zheng said, after some study, scratching his head instead.
Kongming, however, was not particularly concerned. Since the writing systems differed, there was no need to imitate them wholesale.
The example on the light screen was clear enough; he quickly understood that the core of this transmission system lay in only two things: a cipher understood by both sender and receiver, and a set of symbols capable of multiple combinations.
Even without these T-shaped arms, the same effect could be achieved using multicolored flags.
More importantly, after studying it further, Kongming realized that this cipher system seemed especially effective for short-distance communication.
And soon, Kongming noticed a new term.
"'Telescope'? Glass?"
On the light screen appeared a simply sketched little figure, holding a cylindrical tube to his eye, aiming it toward a distant, tiny signal tower.
"Only transparent glass!"
In Chengdu's glass workshops, the glass currently produced still contained obvious impurities, though some pieces were barely translucent.
When Kongming idly examined them, he had noticed that objects seen through glass appeared markedly distorted.
He had planned, once winter arrived, to travel to Hanzhong and carve ice in place of transparent glass for experimentation.
Yet now, unexpectedly, he had already seen something akin to it. Almost instantly, Kongming reached an insight.
"Placed within a tube… the difference between convex and concave yields different effects?"
"According to this, one can see distant objects?"
Kongming's heart immediately itched with anticipation. He nearly wished that Hanzhong would receive heavy snowfall the very next day, so he could rush there at once, obtain ice, and begin experimenting.