"Ah?"
Liu Xie lifted his head from deep thought. Shock and confusion were still clearly visible on his face.
For the moment he could not even consider Zhuge Liang's proposal. Instead he quickly turned toward Liu Bei and asked eagerly,
"Uncle Imperial, what you said earlier… you truly did not deceive me?"
Liu Bei smiled gently and shook his head.
"Earlier I said that from beginning to end I have served the Han with sincerity. Not a single word was false."
"So this light screen truly comes from the later ages?"
"Indeed."
"Then…"
Countless questions surged up in Liu Xie's heart. In the end his voice trembled slightly as he asked,
"Then I and Fu Shou…"
Liu Bei gave a soft sigh.
Liu Xie's heart immediately plunged as if into an icy abyss. At the next moment his hands were taken by the Imperial Uncle.
"According to the records of later generations, I suffered a disastrous defeat at Yiling and soon died from illness. I was unable to aid Your Majesty, which allowed the Han mandate to be stolen."
"When we spoke in that quiet chamber years ago, the things Your Majesty said in jest were all true."
Hearing Liu Bei speak softly, Liu Xie gradually remembered.
Back then he had lamented his own helplessness while trapped in Xuchang, without anyone to rescue him. Rarely indulging himself, he joked that if the Imperial Uncle had acted earlier, perhaps he might have suffered less.
At the time Liu Bei had only smiled, saying that he too was someone who might accomplish great deeds. He then casually spoke about the deaths of his brothers, his defeat in a great fire, and the later chaos and tyranny of the Wei and Jin that would bring calamity upon the realm.
At the time Liu Xie had taken it as exaggeration meant to comfort him.
But now it seemed…
After sitting there for a while, Liu Xie slowly turned his stiff neck and carefully examined the man whom the Imperial Uncle had repeatedly mentioned with great emphasis.
Zhuge Kongming.
After a long look, a sincere smile finally appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"As for matters concerning the light screen, I know nothing. It would not be appropriate for me to say much."
"If there are requests to be made, Military Advisor Zhuge may present them to the Imperial Uncle for decision. A memorial may then be left for me."
The words caused varied expressions among those present.
Men such as Xin Pi and Geng Ji seemed to want to speak but stopped themselves. Yet when they looked at the light screen floating inexplicably in the air, the words they wished to say simply could not be spoken.
Instead Liu Xie appeared as though a tremendous burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
He turned and grasped Liu Bei's hand again.
"After today, Uncle Imperial must tell me in detail about the scenes of the later ages. I am extremely curious. Surely they will not resemble this foreign land…"
Liu Xie struggled to find an appropriate word.
Seeing his difficulty, Liu Bei immediately helped him.
"The future of Huaxia will surely astonish Your Majesty."
"That is good."
Liu Xie let out a sigh of relief. After glancing once more at the light screen, he nodded to Liu Bei and Kongming before straightening his posture and returning to his seat.
He leaned slightly backward toward his wife, Empress Fu Shou, and sighed softly in a voice only the two of them could hear.
"Our Han is fortunate. The Mandate of Heaven has not been lost."
"And even more fortunate… that I am not the one destined to hold it."
Ordinarily such words would carry deep sorrow.
But after twenty years as empress, this was the first time Fu Shou had heard her husband speak with such ease.
It was as if a crushing burden weighing tens of thousands of jin had truly been removed.
He had even begun pointing at the images appearing on the light screen, which were said to be paintings from the Ming dynasty of later ages.
"This painting is quite good. This Ming seems somewhat similar to our Han. The pitch-pot game they are enjoying… I have not played it in a long time."
Fu Shou also raised her head.
The painting from the Ming era gradually enlarged on the light screen. A voice, said by Liu Bei to belong to someone from the future, slowly sounded.
[Lightscreen]
["The 'Enjoyments of Emperor Xuanzong of Ming' is often brought up whenever major sporting events occur. However, we must first make something clear. Among the activities Emperor Xuanzong watches and participates in within the painting, the competitive aspect of sports is actually quite weak. We will discuss that later. For now, let us look at the activities themselves.
From the content of the painting, the scene is quite simple. Emperor Xuanzong, dressed in casual clothing and wearing a brimmed hat, watches various sporting performances within the imperial garden. Occasionally he even participates.
The sequence shown includes archery, cuju, polo, chuiwan, and pitch-pot. Before returning to the palace he even turns back for another look, clearly reluctant to leave.
The first activity Xuanzong plays is archery, which everyone is quite familiar with.
Looking across Chinese history, there have been many famous archers. For example, Yang Youji, the origin of the phrase 'piercing the willow leaf at a hundred paces.' There is also Li Guang, said to have shot arrows that buried themselves into stone. Then there is Lü Bu, who shot the halberd at the camp gate, and Xue Rengui, who stabilized the Tianshan with three arrows.
Because of these figures, many people become curious. If these ancient archery masters could compete on the same stage with modern archers, would they easily sweep the medals, or would they be defeated by modern training methods?
In reality this question cannot be answered.
Historically we tend to think archery is a sport that depends heavily on natural talent. But according to the experience accumulated in modern competition, archery is actually a sport that heavily reflects national strength.
In modern archery there is a common saying. The key lies in consistency.
A truly outstanding archer can ensure that every arrow is released with the same posture and motion, thereby maximizing accuracy and ensuring the repeatability of each shot.
When we examine this further, we find that the core of archery competition is not complicated.
First there is the tedious and persistent training required to engrave posture, muscle exertion, and breathing into one's instincts.
Then comes equipment.
Modern recurve bows contain numerous optimizations compared with traditional bows in order to ensure accuracy. These include sights, stabilizers, weights, arrow rests, pressure buttons, and more.
The arrows themselves are also optimized. Carbon fiber shafts, aerodynamic arrowheads to reduce wind resistance, and adjustments to the center of gravity measured in millimeters. All of these serve to assist the archer in improving accuracy.
On top of the archer's training and the equipment, there are large teams of staff working at specialized venues to calculate optimal techniques for force and breathing. They correct every redundant motion during the drawing of the bow in order to guarantee consistency when shooting.
One could say that every draw of the bow at the Olympic Games stands upon the combined effort of hundreds of people across dozens of training facilities, thousands of mathematical models, and tens of thousands of corrective adjustments.
From this perspective, not only archery but almost all sports competitions are in fact comprehensive contests of national strength.
That is why at the modern Olympics smaller countries may excel in a few individual events, but the nations at the top of the overall medal rankings rarely change.
Viewed from this perspective, we can also examine the 'Enjoyments of Emperor Xuanzong of Ming.'
The decline of archery in the Ming dynasty was partly understandable due to the rise of firearms.
But when cuju and polo became mere performances, one can glimpse the deeper roots of the weakness of the Song and Ming.
In a sense, this is also looking at history through the lens of sports."]
Inside Ganlu Hall, Li Shimin raised his hand and mimed the motion of drawing a bow.
Then he looked at the scenes on the light screen and laughed.
"By this reasoning, it seems I no longer know how to shoot a bow."
"But still…"
"I truly wish I could compete with those archers of later generations."