For a Son of Heaven, especially one who had risen from coarse cloth, knowledge of recent history was not optional. It was instinct.
Among the emperors of Hu Yuan, the one Zhu Yuanzhang admired most was none other than Kublai Khan.
He did not possess the sweeping global awareness of that sharp tongued youth on the light screen, nor did he grasp the full sprawl of the Mongol Empire. Yet the matter of "replacing Yuan with Ming" was recent enough that the early Ming court knew it with clarity. Hu Yuan had not even lasted a century. The grandsons and great grandsons of those who had lived through its founding were still alive. One only had to ask.
They knew of Mongol brutality, of the relative adaptability in early Yuan, of the dizzying turnover of emperors in its later years. Precisely because of this, Kublai's benevolent policies in the beginning shone more brightly, and his late life frustrations appeared all the more tragic.
Now that the light screen attributed his decline to failed campaigns and the prior death of his empress, Zhu Yuanzhang found himself nodding.
"If not for Empress Chabi being both wise and compassionate, whether Kublai could have become Yuan Shizu at all would still be uncertain."
He paused, then added with undisguised pride,
"Much like myself. Had I not gained the favor of my empress…"
Empress Ma cut him off gently, a smile tugging at her lips.
"To pacify the realm rests upon the Son of Heaven commanding his generals, brave officers devising strategy, and soldiers unafraid of death. What I did was merely my duty. How can that be called merit?"
"How can it not?" Zhu Yuanzhang retorted at once. "If you had not soothed the families of the troops, Hezhou might not have held. And the defense of Jiangning…"
Seeing his mother about to demur again, Crown Prince Zhu Biao stepped smoothly into the breach.
"Father and Mother to Great Ming are as Father and Mother to your son. How can one be separated from the other? How could either be lacking?"
He shifted the subject without losing composure.
"Rather, what demands careful deliberation now is governance of Tibet."
With the Crown Prince mediating, Empress Ma said no more, only watching her eldest son speak with calm assurance about the screen's phrase "sacred and inseparable." Satisfaction deepened in her gaze.
Zhu Yuanzhang felt much the same. As he listened to Zhu Biao elaborate with reasoned clarity, his approval grew visible.
"The matter of Yuan Shizu losing his son was stirred up by villains who deserved death. And that crown prince was too timid. Nothing like our Biao."
Leaning sideways, he murmured to his sister with conspiratorial warmth,
"Though Great Ming's territory cannot match early Yuan at its height, this Hongwu Emperor has a virtuous wife and sons. In that, I surpass Yuan Shizu by far."
Empress Ma shook her head at his unabashed self satisfaction, though her grip on his hand tightened slightly.
On the screen, the narration continued.
[Lightscreen]
[The Yuan dynasty inherited the Mongol Empire's appetite for conquest.
Yet geographically it occupied the eastern portion of former Mongol lands, while the khanates lay to the west. Westward expansion was therefore unrealistic. Yuan turned its gaze south and east.
Under Kublai, foreign campaigns remained frequent, but compared to the early Mongol western expeditions, their achievements were sparse. Worse still, the causes of failure were difficult for Kublai to accept.
The eastern expedition against Japan was thwarted by typhoons. That has already been discussed.
To the south, Yuan launched three campaigns against Champa and Annam in present day Vietnam. All three ended poorly.
The first withdrew because the heat was unbearable. The second coincided with the rainy season, and disease swept through the army. The third was halted by epidemic.
Champa and Annam's rulers were shrewd. After exploiting terrain to their advantage and dealing Yuan forces damage, they quickly sent envoys to submit.
As for Burma, the situation may be summarized as enthusiasm exceeding competence. At the time, the Pagan Kingdom was already declining. Yuan forces advanced smoothly and within five years entered the capital and extinguished the dynasty.
Yet geography and climate prevented effective long term control. Burma fractured into warring states. Yuan troops, caught amid chaos, suffered repeated blows and ultimately withdrew, preserving only nominal tribute relations.
This tangled situation later passed into Ming hands. During the Hongwu era, Ming implemented loose control over Burmese polities, but constant internecine warfare limited effective authority.
By the Jiajing period of Ming, after Portugal seized the Strait of Malacca and advanced northward into Burmese affairs, backing proxies against Ming, the situation originally shaped by Kublai finally detonated. The Sino Burmese war lasting over fifty years began.
If those could still be endured, the Java campaign was closer to paying for the privilege of being cheated.
After the Mongol Empire fractured, Yuan's relations with the Chagatai and Golden Horde were strained. In contrast, it maintained closeness with the Ilkhanate under Kublai's brother Hülegü.
Following the fall of Southern Song, Yuan inherited advanced ports and shipbuilding. Trade with the Ilkhanate pushed maritime routes westward, bringing Java into Kublai's focus.
Yuan policy toward Java bore classic Mongol traits. Strike first, ask later. Regard the locals with disdain.
The Majapahit Kingdom feigned submission, used Yuan forces to defeat its rivals and unify Java, then abruptly turned on its allies, killing more than three thousand Yuan soldiers.
Kublai regarded this as a humiliation and resolved retaliation. The following year, he fell ill and died.
In his lifetime, after failures in Japan, Annam, Champa, and Java, Kublai had planned renewed campaigns and established administrative offices. With his death, these plans were shelved. After all, as the adviser says, one must not exhaust oneself. If one dies, how is one to enjoy power?
From Kublai's late life indulgence in drink onward, Yuan emperors were notorious for heavy drinking. Licentiousness, intrigue, and assassination became recurring themes among the nobility. Meanwhile, the local gentry that had risen since Song found unprecedented opportunity.
The Mongol outward conquests that began with Temüjin's western campaigns concluded eighty eight years later on Java.
As for the unified Java later benefiting Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands, that is a matter for the Ming discussion.]
In Xu Chang's prefectural office, Liu Bei and the others listened in silence.
They were not familiar with Portugal or the Yuan in detail. Even their understanding of the Mongols was stitched together from the fierce faces on the screen and old impressions of the Xiongnu.
Yet the map had appeared many times before, and this time the arrows were unmistakable. They began in the west and drove toward the southern seas.
They saw them clearly.
Regret stirred in Liu Bei's heart. Regret that Ming had not foreseen such upheaval of the world. Regret that he himself could not live in such an era and contend upon so vast a stage.
Many emotions collided within him before settling into a single echo of Zhuge Liang's earlier words.
"The age of great contention begins here."