Unlike other households, people normally drank at a child’s hundred-day celebration. When a child was just born, they just came to deliver gifts, then left to wait until the child reached a hundred days before coming to drink. Clearly, this rule was useless for Old Cheng, Old Niu, Qin Qiong, and Yuchi Gong, these old marshals. Before the banquet even started, Old Cheng himself went to the wine cellar and brought up two jars of wine. He found a warm room, pulled Li Jing and a few others inside, closed the door, and they drank by themselves in the room, not even wanting food and wine. Two large men even stood outside the door, not allowing the Yun family’s servants to enter.
After returning to the room to glance at the sleeping Xinyue, he stood to the side carefully examining his son. He hadn’t yet had time to give him a formal name. Children should first have a childhood name to be called by. The old matriarch kept calling him “precious heart,” unwrapping the swaddling clothes to look at his little member and laugh endlessly, very carefully teasing him a couple of times before wrapping the swaddling clothes back up. She sat alone in a chair talking to herself. The prayer beads she normally valued as much as life were tossed aside, and she didn’t even remember to pick them up.
Not wanting to disturb the old matriarch’s happy time, Yun Ye returned to his study. Li Chengqian sat alone at the desk drinking by himself. Li Chunfeng was rummaging through Yun Ye’s bookshelf. Yuan Tiangang had long since drunk himself unconscious—the Yun family’s wine was truly too strong for him.
Taking down a copy of “Elementary Exploration of Mathematics” from the top of the bookshelf and tossing it to Li Chunfeng, this fellow immediately became absorbed in it. He very much approved of Yun Ye’s left-to-right writing style and wasn’t unfamiliar with Arabic numerals either. After all, these years the Great Tang had been sparing no effort in promoting this thing, with merchants as the main force contributing greatly.
Pulling Li Chengqian to the Yun family’s ancestral hall, Yun Ye touched a spot on a pillar and immediately an opening appeared. He took out a scroll from inside, then closed the opening. There was no need to act mysterious in front of Li Chengqian. The Yun family was already mysterious enough. If there were more things others couldn’t understand, it would become eerie.
Mystery and eeriness were two different concepts—one made people yearn, the other made people suspicious. Human hearts were just this strange. A difference of one character—one heaven, one hell.
“What is this?” Li Chengqian very much wanted to know what Yun Ye had taken from such a hidden place.
“Don’t ask too many questions. In a moment, when we go to where the old generals are, just bring your ears and eyes. Don’t ask, don’t answer. You’ll have to go to the battlefield sooner or later. This time when the Great Tang attacks rebellious lands is a good opportunity for you to establish merit and prestige. Remember, absolutely don’t interfere with the generals’ command. Just behave yourself well in the army. If they tell you to go east, don’t go west. As long as you make a trip around the battlefield, that’s enough.”
Li Chengqian was young and hot-blooded. He’d always believed he should be one who held his saber on horseback, commanding the three armies with pride. Hearing Yun Ye say this, he felt somewhat indignant.
Sticking out his neck, he said, “Then what am I going to the army for? Why go to the battlefield if I’m just going to be a good child?”
Yun Ye grabbed Li Chengqian by the collar and said: “What do you understand about the way of battle formations? The most terrible thing in the army is multiple sources of command. Your Crown Prince’s Six Rates are all new recruits who’ve never seen blood, and you’ve never had experience leading troops in battle. Your old man is a dragon among men, yet didn’t he also obediently serve as a captain under Yun Dingxing for several years?”
“Today I’m bringing you to that room. Apart from General Marquis Hou being affectionate toward you, the others all treat you coldly. This is understandable. Your imperial father is in his prime, precisely the right time for expanding territory. So people all ignore you—first to avoid suspicion, second also to avoid suspicion, and third still to avoid suspicion.”
“So now you need to prepare for your future. In the future, you’re destined to become emperor. These old generals are His Majesty’s left and right arms, and in the future will also be your backbone ministers. Leaving them with an impression of modesty and prudence is more important than anything.”
“You want to go into battle to kill enemies? This is what stupid pigs would choose to do. Even if you cut down a hundred, a thousand enemies, it has no bearing on the overall situation. People only need to cut you down and it’s a great victory.”
Li Chengqian was stunned by Yun Ye’s words. He never imagined Yun Ye would use the most vicious language to comment on his passionate ardor. Unconsciously, he became somewhat angry.
“I want to lead a hundred thousand iron cavalry to roam the world and establish unprecedented meritorious achievements! I want to watch the sunrise at the land where the sun rises! I want to capture giant pythons in the southern miasmic lands! I want to plant bronze markers and iron pillars in the western frontier wastelands! I want to pasture eagles at the northern hot sea! Don’t you turn me into a pitiful creature cowering under my father’s wings!”
“Clap, clap, clap, clap…” Yun Ye smiled and applauded. Li Chengqian’s ambitious aspirations were probably…
Seeing Yun Ye applaud, Li Chengqian’s anger subsided as he said: “How do you find my thoughts?”
“Of course they’re good. As a future emperor, you should have such breadth of mind. Ten thousand generations under one roof—very good. It’s just that what you said was a bit stupid. Let me show you something to let you see how foolish your ideals are.”
Li Chengqian was about to flare up again when he discovered Yun Ye had opened the scroll in his hands and spread it flat on the ground, pointing at the scroll and saying: “This is our world now. Some places I’ve been to, some places I’ve only heard of, but I have a map. So let me point at this map and tell you how foolish your ideals are.”
Li Chengqian found he couldn’t get angry at Yun Ye. Even if he did, it would automatically extinguish. Hearing him say this, he knelt on the ground together with Yun Ye to look at the map.
After looking for a long time, he doubtfully pointed at that small piece of land in the east and asked Yun Ye: “My Great Tang is just this small? My Great Tang has ten circuits, three hundred sixty military provinces, one thousand five hundred fifty-seven counties, spanning ten thousand li, yet it’s just this small?”
Li Chengqian looked at the world map, very dissatisfied that the Great Tang only occupied such a tiny piece of land. In his view, the Great Tang should occupy the largest portion of the earth.
“This damned Tianzhu is actually bigger than the Great Tang? This damned Roman Empire actually treats a sea as an inland lake. Are they really that big?”
The extreme nationalist comrade Li Chengqian was dissatisfied to the limit with the world’s divisions. A series of questions roared from his mouth, each one naked jealousy.
“Oh, the Roman Empire collapsed. Many years ago it split into eastern and western Roman Empires. The Western Roman Empire perished, leaving only the Eastern Roman Empire still in existence. Very powerful. The Persians also have a long history. The current Sassanid Dynasty is Persia, constantly at war with the Eastern Roman Empire, never stopping. However, what I want you to see is this piece of land.”
Yun Ye pointed his finger at the place called Jerusalem and continued: “A formidable fellow, holding a sword in one hand and the Quran in the other, has unified this land. Very soon they’ll expand outward. They’re extremely aggressive. They have a famous saying: when there’s nothing left to plunder, I don’t mind plundering my brothers. These fellows will first attack Persia—that Sassanid Dynasty—and then it’ll be our turn. However, there’s still time. You still have time to prepare. And there’s this land.”
Yun Ye pointed his finger at the Tibetan Plateau, tapping it several times and saying: “There’s a fellow called Songtsen Gampo who has already unified this area. They fight bravely and occupy advantageous terrain. Attacking downward from above is always easier than attacking upward from below. Moreover, they’re eyeing Nanzhao covetously. So I say, the wars of these years are places for you to temper yourself. Don’t show off. Your future troubles are immense. In the future, you’ll fight wars until you vomit. What are you rushing for now?”
Li Chengqian stared at Yun Ye with ignorant eyes and said: “How do you know these things? Why does my Great Tang only have fragmentary words about them? And what you say seems to all be true. At least I believe it, because you’ve never deceived me.”
“Didn’t I tell you? I wandered for a full fourteen years, and my master was a remarkable person. It would be strange if I didn’t know. That strange place used a very long time to gradually figure out the general appearance of our world, so you benefit from it. This map is for you. Though it’s not very accurate, the general scope won’t be wrong.”
This map was something Yun Ye had spent a long time copying from his mobile phone. Just the scale had given Yun Ye endless headaches. Some places’ terrain was still different from now—for instance, the Yellow River’s estuary, the Yangtze River’s estuary. Comparing it everywhere with the Great Tang’s territorial map, then adding the world’s general shape, it became what it was now.
Giving it to Li Chengqian was also a helpless measure. Today’s moonlight pearl beads had completely tied the Yun family and the Crown Prince together on one rope. There was nowhere to run even if they wanted to. Fortunately, Li Chengqian wasn’t the bastard from history, so Yun Ye took out something he’d been saving to preserve his life in the future.
Li Chengqian carefully rolled up the map, untied the silk ribbon from his head and tied it up, then raised his head and asked: “You’re giving it to me—how do you want me to use this thing?”
“Of course, take it to fool those ambitious old marshals. They always worry that when the wars are finished, they’ll meet the fate of ‘rabbits dead, hunting dogs cooked.’ So tell them there are still wars to fight, that they won’t be able to finish fighting them in this lifetime. It’s best to make them forever feel that the day of ‘rabbits dead, hunting dogs cooked’ won’t arrive.”
“Then take it into the palace to show your imperial father. Tell him your ideals, just like before—excellent. My initial estimate is that by the time you’ve satisfied your war addiction, His Majesty will also be old, and this world will be at the time for you to control it.”
“Everyone will be at ease, everyone will exert their strength in one direction, greatly reducing internal friction. I believe you’ll cut a large, large piece from this big cake for the Huaxia people.”
Thinking of Li Chengqian’s future magnificent bearing, Yun Ye’s heart surged with emotion. A nobody who couldn’t get on stage in the future world could now point and sketch on maps—how exhilarating!
“Ye Zi, is this your ‘Longzhong Strategy’ for me? Without leaving home, you know the world’s affairs. You’ve astonished me to the extreme.”
“Dream on! I won’t be any Zhuge Liang. First, I’m not as smart as him. Second, I’m relatively lazy. You go do things—I’ll enjoy good fortune in the back. Don’t look for me for things like working myself to death. Just attending classes every day now, I already feel tired.”
“When you succeed in the future, just give me a high and lofty position where I just collect money without doing work, the kind of official where those who bullied me have to bow to me when they see me. Every day when I go out, not to do business, just to bully people—that’s my dream. Remember you must make my dream become reality.”
Li Chengqian laughed heartily toward the sky, pulling Yun Ye’s hand and saying: “We have an agreement. I’ll go conquer the four directions, you bully people in the capital. Together we’ll happily and joyfully live out this lifetime.”