Facing Zhang Fei's boisterous questioning, Ma Su found himself utterly paralyzed.
He had read the military classics. He had memorized them, analyzed them, and could recite entire passages from memory without pausing for breath, and his mind, trained in the logic of war, produced a single, cold conclusion without hesitation:
Execution.
But when the neck on the block was his own, the weight of those two words became a crushing burden. Even Zhang Fei's grin, usually a mask of rough brotherhood, looked like the sharpened edge of a headsman's axe.
As Ma Su remained speechless and trembling, Zhang Fei shook his head in boredom.
At that moment, the Light Screen flickered, and Ma Su's name reappeared in the glowing script.
[Lightscreen]
[The first three Northern Expeditions, the Battle of Shiting in Jiangdong, and Cao Wei's own campaigns against Wu were all part of a single interconnected war that spanned all three kingdoms.
In this theater, the most pivotal figure, for better or worse, was undoubtedly Ma Su.
From a macro strategic perspective, the Prime Minister's plan had no flaws whatsoever.
Longyou marked the starting point of the Hexi Corridor.
To the north lay the Alashan Plateau.
To the south stretched the Tibetan Plateau.
If the Longyou Corridor could be sealed off, then as You Chu had predicted, the entire Longyou region would surrender within a month without further fighting.
This would have given Shu Han total strategic initiative, allowing them to harass Guanzhong at will.
So, why do we say Ma Su 'violated the Prime Minister's directives'? Because his sole mission at Jieting was to delay with the Wei reinforcements reaching Longyou..
Whether he held firm or engaged in hit-and-run harassment, as long as he kept the Longyou Corridor cut off, the strategic objective would be achieved, even if every last soldier died in the process.
But Ma Su, leading an army for the first time, silently echoed the fatal hubris of the era: Why can't I be the main character? Why do I have to play the supporting role?
Ma Su's fatal flaw was his desire to concentrate his forces and transform his role from a supporting actor into the star of the show.
He wanted to annihilate the Wei reinforcements in one glorious stroke. He wanted glory. He wanted his name written in the stars alongside the greatest commanders of the age.
Instead, through a series of tactical blunders, he transitioned from a supporting actor to a clown. He tried to play a game of annihilation, only to be defeated by Zhang He's simple, brutal maneuver of cutting off his water. That was it.
No brilliant stratagem.
No complex deception.
Zhang He simply surrounded Ma Su's position and waited for thirst to do his work for him.
Tactics are supposed to serve strategy. But Ma Su's defeat at Jieting represented a failure on both levels simultaneously. Both the tactical execution and the strategic objective collapsed together.
It's no wonder Zhang He didn't pursue him; He had been fighting wars for decades and had never seen anyone handle an army quite like that. He probably thought it was some kind of trap.
No commander could actually be that incompetent. Could they?]
The gathered group had reached a point where they could barely bring themselves to look at Ma Su anymore
"If we could have seal the Longyou Corridor and occupied Longxi," Kongming mused, his eyes distant as he looked at the maps.
"To the west, we could have accessed what later generations call the Silk Road. The trade routes that connect the great civilizations. Endless wealth flowing into our treasuries to fund the army.
To the east, the three hundred miles of Guanzhong would have been our playground, forcing the Cao dogs to retreat to Tongguan. Once we gathered enough strength to take that pass, the world would have been ours."
Guan Yu weighed the terms "strategy" and "tactics," finding that the future's military vocabulary cut straight to the marrow of the art of war.
Liu Bei, however, let out a weary sigh.
"It is not only wealth and treasure that stirs the hearts of men. What truly moves people is fame and status. The desire to be recognized. The hunger to be remembered."
He felt a strange numbness toward the concept of the "Lead Actor.
" If Sun Shinwan-ge hadn't wanted to play the lead and had simply parked his army on the north bank, the First Expedition might have worked.
If Sima Yi and Cao Xiu hadn't fought over the lead role, they might have actually crushed Sun Wu.
And if Ma Su hadn't wanted to be the hero, Jieting wouldn't have been lost before Kongming could even turn his head.
The air in the hall was thick with the weight of "what-ifs." Ma Su's face burned with a shame so hot it felt like a physical fever.
[Lightscreen]
[For single-handedly turning years of Shu Han's preparation into smoke and then abandoning his post, by any measure of military law, Ma Su's execution was legally inevitable.
Did anyone plead for his life? Of course they did. This is politics, after all.
There are always those who will speak up for a condemned man, whether out of genuine sympathy or political calculation.
But the Prime Minister dismissed every single one of them from office and imposed punishments accordingly. Among them was a consultant surnamed Chen. His penalty was to have his hair cut off as a mark of disgrace, that man later had a son named Chen Shou.
Chen Shou was a student of Qiao Zhou, the leader of the surrender faction when Shu Han fell, during his time in office, Chen Shou was frequently treated with contempt and disrespect by the Prime Minister's son, Zhuge Zhan.
As a result of these connections and grievances, a certain historical interpretation emerged. Some scholars have argued that when Chen Shou compiled the Records of the Three Kingdoms, he allowed his personal feelings to color his work.
The evidence cited for this view is the distribution of content within the text. The Records of the Three Kingdoms contains sixty five volumes in total. The Book of Shu consists of only fifteen volumes, a mere fraction of the whole work.
Chen Shou's own explanation was: 'The state did not appoint official historians; there were no officers for recording.'
Essentially: 'Shu didn't keep records. Whether you believe me or not, this is how I'm writing it.']
"This..." Kongming felt a subtle, jarring sense of wrongness.
Zhang Fei was faster to the point.
"So you're saying that because we're separated from the future by over a thousand years, whatever this Chen Shou fellow wrote is the only thing they have to believe? Is that why my statue looks like a hideous ogre? Did that brat write me that way?"
His tiger-like gaze snapped back to Ma Su.
The young man nearly fainted from terror. "General Zhang, please! I am but a lowly consultant! I haven't even had a son yet!"
Fortunately, Guan Yu intervened. "Third brother, your 'ugly face' is the work of future actors and playwrights, not the historian."
Zhang Fei grumbled and let the matter drop, though he secretly vowed to commission as many handsome portraits of himself as possible to send into the future.
[Lightscreen]
[The claim that 'Shu did not appoint historians' is a complex and messy topic.
First, we must understand that the 'Historian' of the Han era didn't have the same job description as the historians of later ages. The 'Grand Historian' (Tai Shi Ling) was a jack-of-all-trades.
Their duties included mathematics, disaster recording, astronomy, the calendar, ritual law, personnel evaluation, and transcribing books.
Sima Qian was actually an outlier; it was only because his Records of the Grand Historian became so famous that people assumed the office was dedicated to writing history. After him, historiography was essentially a part-time job.
Shu Han followed the Han system. Initially, they didn't have a dedicated historiography office; the roles of 'Historian' and 'Astronomer' remained fused.
However, as the three kingdoms stabilized, both Wei and Wu began to formalize the process. Cao Rui established the 'Gentleman of Writing,' bringing the state into the business of history. Sun Wu followed suit, creating a dedicated office in their later years.
After the Prime Minister passed away, Jiang Wan and Fei Yi realized that the restoration of the Central Plains would take time. As the legitimate Han successor, they decided they needed to record their legacy.
They combined two Han-era titles to create the 'Secretariat of the Eastern Library.' The 'Book of Shu' actually lists the men who held this post: Que Zheng, Chen Shou, Wang Chong, Sima Shengzhi, and Xi Long.
This alone proves that Chen Shou's claim of 'no historians' was, at best, a convenient half-truth.]
"That complicated?" Jiang Wan paused, his brush hovering over his own name in his notes.
"But it proves that appointing a dedicated historian is vital," Kongming said, seeing the deeper implication.
"If the future can only view our lives through the lens of a single book, then a historian's bias is no small matter. If they distort the truth out of personal spite, a man's legacy could be erased from the green scrolls of history forever."
Jian Yong added another chilling possibility. "What if there had been no Zhou Gongjin at Red Cliffs?
What If the Cao dog had usurped the Han then, and his grandsons had used their 'Gentlemen of Writing' to define history? We would be remembered as nothing more than rebels and bandits."
A cold sweat broke out among the group.
Liu Bei and Kongming shared a look, reaching an instant, silent consensus: the priority of "Writing History" was being moved to the very top of the to-do list.
[Lightscreen]
[With one mystery solved, another arises: Why is the 'Book of Shu' so uneven?
During the early period of Shu Han, before any formal historical office existed, the records concerning major figures are actually quite detailed. Liu Bei's biography is extensive. The Prime Minister's biography is thorough.
Yet others are shockingly brief. Jian Yong's biography is only 276 characters long, over half of which is just him telling jokes to Liu Bei. We don't even know how Jian Yong died.
Even weirder? Once the historians were officially appointed in the later period, the records got shorter.
Take Wu Yi, for example. He was Liu Bei's brother-in-law, a member of the imperial family. He was a General of Chariots and Cavalry, a high-ranking official. He crushed Guo Huai during the Northern Expeditions, a famous general. He checked every box for a legendary biography, yet he doesn't even have a standalone entry.]
Jian Yong shook his head with a wry, bitter smile. "I was wondering how I'd go out. Turns out, my ending was simply... deleted."
Mi Zhu patted his shoulder. "At least you're remembered for your wit, Xianhe."
He thought of his own recorded ending, dying of shame and illness because of his brother's betrayal, and felt a different kind of sting.
"Wait, we have another sister-in-law?!" Zhang Fei's eyes went wide.
He turned to Jian Yong. "Xianhe, do you know of this lady?"
Noticing Liu Bei's curious expression, Jian Yong nodded. "General Wu Yi has a sister named Wu Xian. She is quite famous for her beauty and virtue."
Zhang Fei and Guan Yu were about to congratulate their brother when Jian Yong added, "She was married to Liu Mao, the third son of Liu Yan. But Liu Mao went mad and died last year."
"Oh..." Zhang Fei and Guan Yu exchanged a look.
Liu Bei's expression became profoundly awkward.
Zhang Fei, trying to break the tension, offered a clumsy compliment: "Big brother, you truly have the spirit of the Great Ancestor!"
Liu Bei didn't hesitate; he snatched a cup from the table and hurled it at Zhang Fei's head.
[Lightscreen]
[These oddities in the 'Book of Shu' must be viewed through the lens of the era.
Unlike the fall of Sun Wu, when Shu Han collapsed, the surrender triggered the chaos of the Zhong Hui rebellion. Jiang Wei's desperate scheme to restore the dynasty threw the entire region into turmoil.
Consequently, the surviving elites of Shu Han were branded as 'troublemakers' and 'lovers of chaos.' They were forcibly relocated to the regions of Hedong and Henan, treated as prisoners or slaves.
During his time in Shu, Chen Shou only enjoyed his post for three or four years before being slighted by the eunuch Huang Hao and the Prime Minister's son.
He spent seven years as a displaced person performing hard labor. It wasn't until five years after the fall of Wei that the Shu survivors were even allowed to use their old titles.
When Chen Shou wrote the 'Book of Shu,' the trauma of the rebellion was still fresh.
He likely glossed over the later generals to avoid attracting unwanted attention from the authorities.
In contrast, his teacher Qiao Zhou wrote the Basic Annals of Shu, which was lost.
His colleague Wang Chong wrote the Book of Shu, which was also lost.
There is a saying in the future: 'He who controls the past, controls the future.' In this context, nothing could be more accurate.]
He who controls the past, controls the future?
Across time, in the halls of the Great Tang, the Emperor and his ministers savored the phrase. They were currently following the tradition of writing the history of the previous dynasty, the Book of Jin. They hadn't realized just how much power was held at the tip of a historian's brush.
Li Shimin felt a sudden itch of curiosity about the future's General History of China. How had they judged him? Had they looked past the gate at Xuanwu?
Li Jing was equally curious. "I wonder, how many words will I occupy in the history of Tang?"
Li Shimin laughed heartily. "Yao Shi, if you can wipe out the Turks for me and wash away our shame, you'll be at the head of the Martial Temple! I'll carve your deeds into a monument that reaches the clouds!"
The Light Screen's earlier mention of a monument for the Opium War gave Li Shimin a new idea. Why just write on paper? He would carve the glory of Tang into the very stone of Chang'an, ensuring his legacy would remain long after the ink faded.
Fang Xuanling, diligently transcribing the screen's every word, suddenly froze as his own name appeared.
[Lightscreen]
[And if we're talking about 'unreliable' history... Fang Xuanling's supervision of the Magical Index of Jin—formally known as the Book of Jin—certainly takes the lead!]