Every time Kongming had to travel, he developed a profound and agonizing envy for the future.
It was the Lightscreen's fault, really. Those netizens never shut up about it.
High-Speed Rail this, six hours to Xi'an that.
He had seen the video clips. Gleaming metal carriages hurtling across the countryside like divine serpents while he, the greatest strategist of his age, was getting his kidneys rearranged by a spiteful pack pony on a dirt path.
The future descendant had no right to be that comfortable, right ?
After receiving the victory dispatches from his Lord and Shiyuan, Kongming had gathered Sun Qian, Mi Zhu, and a small army of two thousand skilled artisans.
They departed from Jiangling and pushed westward into the heart of Shu. They walked until their boots wore thin, rode stubborn pack ponies, and spent weeks wrestling boats against the relentless current of the Yangtze.
It was not until the middle of October that Kongming finally set foot in Chengdu.
"In my Longzhong Plan, I praised this land as a vast expanse of fertile soil, a Heavenly Kingdom," Kongming remarked, standing atop the city battlements and looking out over the sprawling plains.
It was his first time seeing the fruit of his strategic dreams with his own eyes.
His voice carried a hint of wistful hunger. "Though I must say, the food in Chengdu is distressingly similar to Jingzhou. A few minor variations, but effectively the same palate."
"And what exactly did you expect Chengdu's food to look like?" Pang Tong asked, leaning against a crenellation and genuinely curious about his colleague's eccentricities.
Kongming's eyes glazed over with a visionary light.
His mind drifted back to something he had glimpsed on the Lightscreen, a travelogue from an era he would never live to see.
The comment section had been absolutely unhinged, but the footage, the footage he remembered with painful clarity.
"I imagined a pot overflowing with red oil," he said, his hands shaping the air.
"Ingredients bobbing in the spicy depths, steam rising in thick clouds, the scent sharp and pungent. A dish so hot the diners are drenched in sweat and gasping for air."
Pang Tong shook his head.
He was now thoroughly convinced that Kongming had caught a mild case of sunstroke somewhere between Jiangling and the Yangtze.
Red oil? Drenched in sweat?
Was the future Chengdu even the same city?
For one thing, the future apparently had high-speed trains that could cross the realm in the time it took to eat breakfast.
Meanwhile, the current Chengdu was a place where a simple ox cart could rattle your teeth clean out of your skull on a bad road.
A smirk played across Pang Tong's lips. "Well, thanks to the Prime Minister Zhuge's Governance of Shu strategy we have been studying, the irrigation and silk bureaus are already being established. You had better work hard, Kongming.
You would not want to be outperformed by, well, yourself. right?"
Kongming gave him a look that clearly said: Are you even speaking human language?
"The Lord invited me to inspect the treasuries Liu Zhang left behind," Kongming said, steering the conversation back to practical matters.
"There is still enough surplus to fund the immediate transition. Gongyou needs to conscript laborers to lay straight roads through the city, dredge the canals, build the new hydraulic workshops, and scale up the iron smelting. None of that comes cheap."
Below them, Sun Qian was already leading a squad of soldiers and local civilians. They were armed with shovels and picks, tearing up the rotted sections of the road. Civilians stood by, watching with a mixture of suspicion and awe.
Sun Qian was busy explaining something. His voice was lost to the wind, but the universal language of 'work for pay' was likely the core of his sermon.
Just then, an attendant arrived to inform Kongming that a prominent scholar from Yizhou was seeking an audience.
Kongming glanced at the name card and let out a soft, delighted laugh. "Shiyuan, would you care to join me for a meeting?"
Pang Tong raised an eyebrow.
Now that the conquest was over, he was technically on break.
The governance of Yizhou was being handled using the future Kongming's policies, which he had happily rubber-stamped without a second thought.
"Is it someone of great talent?"
Kongming tucked the card into his sleeve with a mysterious grin. "You will know when you see him."
The two of them descended the walls, hopping over muddy trenches where the new roads were being laid, dodging narrow alleys, and leaping over an open sewer before finally reaching the magnificent rear entrance of the Governor's manor.
In the courtyard, Pang Tong saw the silhouette of a man in wide-sleeved robes.
When the man turned around, Pang Tong was met with narrow, calculating eyes and a thin mustache that gave him an air of being perpetually difficult to please.
"Fa Zheng of Fufeng, at your service, Military Advisor Zhuge."
Before Kongming could speak, Pang Tong blurted out, "So, you are Fa Xiaozhi."
Fa Zheng gave the plain-looking man a strange look before turning back to Kongming with professional intensity.
"I heard of your arrival several days ago, Military Advisor. I have come to pay my respects."
Fa Zheng had already done his homework.
When Jian Yong had passed through, they had talked late into the night, and Fa Zheng had learned that if you wanted to get anything done in the Imperial Uncle's camp, you started with the Military Advisor.
Lately, the Lord had been surrounded by the powerful Great clans of Yizhou, and since Fa Zheng did not have a massive clan backing him, he chose the tactical route. The side door to the genius.
"Your talents reached my ears long ago, Xiaozhi," Kongming said, cutting straight to the chase. "Why not come with me to meet the Lord?"
"Wait a moment." Pang Tong's voice cut through the courtyard.
The smile that had just begun to form on Fa Zheng's face died where it stood. And who exactly are you?
Pang Tong began to circle Fa Zheng like a hawk inspecting a particularly interesting rodent. "What was your previous post? What are your achievements? What have you actually done?"
Fa Zheng stiffened. "I served as the Magistrate of Xindu County."
Pang Tong kept digging. "And your age?"
Fa Zheng was starting to find the interrogation more than a little bizarre. "I was born in the fifth year of Xiping."
Pang Tong did some quick mental math. Three years older than me. No major achievements to speak of. No fame. And more importantly, I did not die at Luocheng in this timeline, so what exactly do I have to fear?
With a grand and sweeping gesture, Pang Tong declared, "Xiaozhi! Forget the administrative paperwork. Come help me draft the strategy for taking Hanzhong!"
Fa Zheng said nothing, but his eyes screamed the question for him. "Seriously, who the hell is this guy?"
Kongming stepped in, chuckling. "This is the great talent of Jingzhou, the Fengchu with the power to assist the world, Pang Shiyuan. The entire strategy for taking Yizhou, that was his handiwork."
Fa Zheng's posture shifted in an instant, straightening into one of profound respect.
He had been agonizing over his career as a lowly county magistrate while this man had simply swallowed an entire province.
"I would be honored to serve," Fa Zheng replied. A few military achievements, he calculated, would give him precisely the leverage he needed to deal with the Lord directly.
In another part of the sprawling manor, Liu Bei was holding Zhang Song's hands in a warm and fraternal grip.
"To serve under you, Xuande-gong, my life is finally complete," Zhang Song said, his voice thick with emotion.
He remembered their first meeting a year ago, when he had planned to act as an internal spy to help take the province. To be sitting here now, with the city already won, felt like something out of a dream.
"If I had forced you to compromise your integrity, I would not have felt at peace even with Chengdu in my hands," Liu Bei said, smoothly shifting the conversation away from Zhang Song's past betrayal.
"However, it is a great regret that the other great talent of Yizhou, Liu Zichu, refuses to join my service. I would ask you to pay him a visit on my behalf."
Zhang Song nodded, though his expression remained troubled. "Liu Ba has been critical of General Liu Zhang in the past, and since your arrival, he has claimed illness and refused to leave his house. I fear he may prove stubborn."
Liu Bei shook his head and produced two letters. "The Military Advisor wrote these for him. One is titled An Inquiry into the Five Baht Coin Standard, and the other is A Brief Summary of Currency Warfare. Just make sure he reads them."
As Zhang Song departed, Liu Bei suddenly remembered another name on his list. Where is Fa Xiaozhi? We have been in the city for days now. Why has he not come to see me?
While the leadership in Chengdu was buried in the minutiae of state-building, Jian Yong had already slipped out of the province.
He carried a letter co-authored by Liu Bei, Pang Tong, and Zhuge Liang.
Convincing Liu Zhang to surrender was, in Jian Yong's mind, just another day at the office. It was not something he felt deserved a trophy. He had turned down the official rewards and instead volunteered to head toward the provinces of Liangzhou and Yongzhou.
He had two goals. Meet with Ma Chao again, and ensure the co-authored letter made its way from Guanzhong to Xuchang.
The route from Jiangling to Xuchang was shorter, but after the battle of Red Cliff and the recent defeat of Yue Jin, the border between Jingzhou Province and Xiangyang Province had become a scorched-earth nightmare.
The mountain road to Guanzhong was grueling, but Jian Yong knew his value lay in his legs and his tongue.
Dressed as a simple merchant and mounted on a sturdy pack horse, Jian Yong pulled out a small notebook and a charcoal pen.
He began to scribble down observations of the local customs and the state of the roads. He knew he was not built for the official history books, but if he could leave behind a record of what life was actually like out here, that would be worth more than a footnote calling him witty.
Zhao A had ultimately decided against joining the army. He had taken Old Li's advice to heart.
He was an orphan with no wife, and if he worked the land for a few more years, he would have enough saved to live comfortably.
Why suffer the hardships of the barracks?
So Zhao A threw himself into his work. By October, he was bent double in his field, tearing out weeds with a vengeance, when he noticed a stranger standing in the adjacent plot.
"Are you the new hired hand for Old Li?" Zhao A asked, his voice tinged with suspicion.
"Old Li sold the land to me," the stranger replied, looking over the soil with evident satisfaction.
"What?" Zhao A straightened up, stunned. "If he sold the land, how is he supposed to live?"
The stranger looked at him with open envy. "That old man is loaded. Turns out he sold off his properties in Zigui, bought himself a small boat, and headed straight for Chengdu."
Zhao A stood in the middle of his field, looking lost and heartbroken, like a child abandoned at a fair.
His first instinct was to sell his own land and follow, but he caught himself.
Old Li had a fortune. What did Zhao A have? A single jar of coins?
He had seen the city of Jiangling. He knew his little fortune was pocket change to the people who mattered.
He looked around at his fields. Life was finally getting better. So why was everyone leaving? But deep down, he understood. Zigui was backwater. It had always been backwater.
Maybe, just maybe, he should try his luck in Jiangling? The thought took root, and suddenly, pulling weeds felt unbearably dull.
The transition of power in Chengdu had not been a bloodbath. It had been, in every sense that mattered, a gentle spring rain.
And yet, the great clans of Chengdu were falling over themselves to swear allegiance. Officially, this was because Liu Bei was a man of legendary benevolence, and the old families had absolute faith in his character.
It had absolutely nothing to do with the ten thousand veteran soldiers under General Zhao Yun stationed just outside the city walls. Or the hundreds of northern war-stallions patrolling the outskirts, beasts the people of Shu had never even laid eyes on before.
Stories from the north had finally reached the capital. The Famous Generals of Shu, Gao Pei and Yang Huai, were gone. One dead, one surrendered. The Baishui Army, the strongest force in the province, had been erased in a matter of days.
If anyone wanted to dismiss the fall of Baishui Pass as Gao Pei being a tactical idiot who got tricked, they could.
But they had no such excuse for the slaughter at Langzhong. Yang Huai, backed by ten thousand men, had been skewered in the heart of his own formation by a force of only three hundred riders.
Had Yizhou been at peace for so long that they no longer recognized a true hero of the realm when one rode through their lines?
The great clnas understood perfectly well that while they did not have cavalry, the best place for a horse to kill you was on a flat plain. Like the plains south of Langzhong. Or the thousand-li of fertile flatland surrounding Chengdu.
Resting comfortably under the Benevolence guaranteed by Zhao Yun's spears, Liu Bei's new decrees were met with enthusiastic compliance.
The construction of hydraulic workshops and the appointment of officials for the Dujiangyan irrigation system were hailed as strokes of genius.
The old families even reached into their own coffers to help Sun Qian repair the roads and dredge the canals.
Under these harmonious conditions, when Liu Bei proposed drafting the Shu Code of Law, a new and considerably stricter legal system, the clans merely swallowed their objections and smiled. They recognized a velvet glove when they saw one, especially when they knew the iron fist inside was wearing silver-plated gauntlets.
By the end of October, Liu Bei sat at the head of the government hall, feeling a surge of genuine triumph.
Beside him were the minds that had made it possible. Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, Mi Zhu, Zhang Song, Liu Ba, and Fa Zheng. His generals, Zhao Yun and Zhang Fei, stood like twin pillars at the entrance.
By now, Gongyan and Jichang should be busy copying down the latest information from the Lightscreen back in Gong'an," Liu Bei mused. Back in Jiangzhou, he could have simply hopped on a boat and headed downstream. Now, he was the center of a world he could not leave so easily.
And then, without warning, the glowing screen of light manifested in the air before them, freezing every soul in the hall where they stood.
Liu Bei: ?????