Deep down, Li Shimin would really rather not dig too deeply into the whole business of an empress taking the throne.
Du Ruhui and Fang Xuanling had left records of the matter. Tracking them down and putting the pieces together would hardly be difficult.
The problem was Wu Zetian.
She had started out as one of his cairen, ended up as his son's Empress, and eventually gone on to become Emperor of Wu Zhou. Every time Li Shimin thought about that little career progression, he felt a headache coming on.
Then there were the Crown Prince rebellions. The trusted ministers who turned traitor. The endless parade of people who apparently woke up one morning and decided the royal family needed a good betrayal.
His head was already pounding. He had no intention of making it worse.
So Li Shimin decided to leave the whole mess alone. For the sake of his blood pressure, if nothing else.
Whenever the subject came up, he preferred to think of Emperor Guangwu of Han. Surely one of his descendants would turn out like Liu Xiu, restoring the dynasty and rallying the people to rebuild the Great Tang.
A perfectly reasonable hope. What could possibly go wrong?
Apparently, quite a lot.
He had never imagined the Li family would come so close to losing not just the throne, but the family name itself.
He had assumed the hundred-year Taixuan Golden Age would hold firm. The early Tang armies had swept over the surrounding peoples like a tidal wave. The empire had been on a roll. How was it supposed to go from conquering everyone else to nearly getting conquered by its own in-laws?
Who could have predicted this spectacular mess?
Li Shimin shook his head and flopped onto his bed. The ceiling, at least, had the good sense to keep its opinions to itself.
A hand reached out from beside him. Warmth flooded his heart.
Ah, the Empress. There was a reason she was his favorite person in the world.
Then he took the hand.
Something was wrong.
The skin was rough. The palm was calloused. And unless Empress Zhangsun had taken up medicine in her spare time, this was most definitely not her hand.
Li Shimin looked up.
Sun Simiao stared back at him with the sort of expression usually reserved for patients who made a doctor's life unnecessarily difficult.
"Your Majesty. Your heat-clearing pill."
"Oh. Right."
Empress Zhangsun turned away, biting her lip to keep from laughing.
Li Shimin swallowed the bitter pill with some water. As the medicine settled in his stomach, his mind cleared a little. Unfortunately, it also left him with enough clarity to get angry at the Buddhist monks all over again.
"A bunch of useless parasites, sitting around babbling about emptiness," he grumbled. "Making up Buddhist scriptures just to flatter a ruler. Truly, birds of a feather flock together."
For all his cursing, his mind had already moved on to the practical implications. Li Shimin turned to Du Ruhui.
"Keming, when you get the chance, repackage this story and pass it on to that Japanese monk."
Du Ruhui's mouth twitched.
His Majesty had just called the Buddhist monks useless parasites. Now he wanted Du Ruhui to teach a Japanese monk how to pull the exact same stunt to gain influence in Japan.
One moment they were frauds. The next, they were a useful source of ideas.
His Majesty certainly knew how to separate personal feelings from matters of state.
Du Ruhui immediately began running through the possibilities. Several workable plans came to mind, one after another.
For example, the veneration of eminent monks and the welcoming of their sacred relics had been popular since the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui. The practice was hardly new.
Guanzhong and Luoyang already had more than enough temples. Why not pick a few eminent monks, gather up their relics, and send them east to spread Buddhism among those supposedly uncivilized people? The monks would hardly object. They might even thank the court for the opportunity.
It was a neat arrangement. The temples got to expand their influence, Japan got its Buddhism, and the Tang court gained another way to extend its reach overseas.
Everyone got something. Especially the people making the arrangements.
By now, Li Shimin, Du Ruhui, and the others had gradually come to understand a simple truth.
Whether the Great Tang needed its temples was open to debate.
Whether the temples needed the Great Tang was not.
They absolutely did.
Still, when Li Shimin returned to the passage about the emperor requesting a bestowed surname, his anger flared up all over again. He let loose another string of curses.
"Imperial relatives, foreign peoples, Buddhist monks, Daoists. Heh. Every last one of you is lining up to lend a hand."
As if the empire didn't have enough people trying to meddle in its affairs already.
This time, Empress Zhangsun took both his hands in hers. Smiling gently, she said, "All those underhanded schemes to steal a country are nothing compared to the upright way you and your men conquered the realm on horseback."
"Besides, as later generations have said, Wu Zhou's return to the Tang was inevitable."
Her reassurance finally drew a sigh from the emperor.
"True. Even in the middle of such chaos, there were still loyal and capable men who helped put the court back on the right track."
He paused, then frowned at another thought.
"But this Di Renjie. Was he from Taiyuan?"
The surname Di was uncommon. Back when Li Yuan served as garrison commander at Jinyang during the Sui Dynasty, Li Shimin had accompanied his father on several military expeditions to Taiyuan. He knew the local customs reasonably well, though he could only vaguely recall a family there with the surname Di.
Now he was genuinely curious.
Just how capable had this Di Renjie been to help steer the court out of such a spectacular mess?
[Lightscreen]
[In the 8th year of the Zhenguan era, Li Shimin was sharpening his blades, preparing to deal with Tuyuhun, a people determined to bring about their own downfall.
But domestic affairs were not being neglected. That same year, Li Shimin wanted to better understand public opinion and clean up the administration. So he dispatched 13 commissioners to inspect officials across the empire.
The title Chuzhi Dashi combined the ideas of demotion and promotion. These commissioners, appointed by Li Shimin himself, represented another step forward in the central government's supervision of local administration.
Previously, during the Sui and early Tang dynasties, oversight of local officials had largely fallen to inspectors serving under the Censorate. Their main responsibility was to investigate and submit reports. Their authority was limited.
The new commissioners held high positions and were granted temporary decision-making powers. They could promote or dismiss local officials. They could imprison them. They could even order their execution.
That is a lot of power for one man on a horse.
The system became more developed during the middle and late Tang periods. Its responsibilities were divided among more specialized offices, and the titles evolved over time, giving rise to positions such as circuit inspectors, surveillance commissioners, and observation commissioners.
Having several supervisory bodies oversee and cross-check one another also helped prevent the central government from being left in the dark about what was happening in the provinces.
Was it a sound administrative decision?
Yes. Yes, it was.]
Empress Zhangsun turned around and caught Li Shimin lifting his chin, clearly eager to bask in the achievement. Yet he was trying his best to look unconcerned, as though the whole thing were nothing remarkable.
She had been about to praise him, but the sight made her laugh. Instead, she decided to tease him.
"You won't establish this office until 3 years from now. What are you so pleased with yourself for?"
Li Shimin was not bothered in the slightest.
"According to what the screen says, the Tang campaign against Tuyuhun should not begin for another 4 years."
"But the war has already started. By August at the latest, Li Jing will have Fuyun bound and brought before me."
He spoke with complete confidence. By now, Li Shimin knew all too well how powerful the things produced by the Five Thunders Bureau could be.
Why wouldn't he be confident?
One of his greatest pleasures these days was using the Light Screen to compete with the version of himself recorded in the history books of later generations.
Conquer countries faster. Make his people wealthier. Expand the territory farther. Collect more ministers and consorts along the way.
It was a very personal scoreboard. And he intended to win.
He was also curious about one thing.
Just how far could his Zhenguan-era empire sail?
[Lightscreen]
[But that is a digression. The system of commissioners empowered to demote and promote officials was successfully passed down through the generations.
When Li Zhi became emperor, Yan Liben caught the attention of Emperor Gaozong through his work painting the portraits at Lingyan Pavilion. He was appointed as one of these commissioners and sent out of the capital to inspect the provinces.
Yan Liben served as the commissioner for the Henan Circuit. When his inspection brought him to Taiyuan, he took one look at Di Renjie and gave him the highest praise.
"You, sir, are truly a bright pearl from the shores of the sea, a treasure hidden away in the southeast!"
That is the kind of compliment that sounds amazing until you realize it means "you are wasting your talent in the middle of nowhere."
Yan Liben then directly appointed Di Renjie to a legal post in the Bingzhou Governor's Office.
That appointment marked the beginning of Di Renjie's rise. It also helped establish the image later generations would associate with him: a master of solving cases.
Di Renjie distinguished himself at the Bingzhou Governor's Office. Thanks to Yan Liben's recommendation and his own solid record, he was soon promoted to Deputy Director of the Court of Judicial Review.
After taking office, he cleared all 17,000 difficult and disputed cases that had piled up at the court in just 1 year. Not a single case resulted in an unjust or wrongful judgment.
17,000 cases. In 1 year. That is not a work ethic. That is a medical condition.
But after arriving in Chang'an, Di Renjie's rebellious streak began to show.
During the Yifeng era, Li Zhi's health had deteriorated considerably. Wu Zetian, by contrast, remained in excellent health.
The problems with the arrangement known as the rule of the Two Saints were becoming increasingly apparent. Once Li Zhi, one of the two Saints, was gone, who would restrain the healthy and vigorous Wu Zetian?
By then, the locust tree growing over Changsun Wuji's grave had grown thick. With their common enemy gone, the imperial couple had begun struggling against each other for power.
For officials serving in Chang'an, choosing a side had become unavoidable.
So which side was Di Renjie on?
From Li Zhi's perspective, there was no doubt. The Empress's faction. Obviously.
The reason was simple. After clearing the backlog at the Court of Judicial Review, Di Renjie could not sit still. He began impeaching guilty officials, determined to uphold the law without favoritism.
During this period, Di Renjie successively impeached Quan Shancai, the General of the Wuwei Guard; Wei Ji, Minister of Agriculture who also oversaw construction projects; and Wang Benli, a senior official in the central administration. These men were all close confidants of Li Zhi, and they had taken the lead in the struggle against Empress Wu.
To outsiders, the situation looked even more suspicious. Di Renjie and Wu Zetian both came from Bingzhou. Fellow provincials. Who would believe Di Renjie was not one of the Empress's people?
Truth be told, Di Renjie felt deeply aggrieved. It was not that he did not want to stand with His Majesty.
But, Your Majesty, why did you insist on favoring such a bunch of rotten melons and cracked dates?
Li Zhi, however, never gave Di Renjie the chance to prove his loyalty. A few years later, the emperor died. Wu Zetian then formally took control of the court as Empress Dowager, ruling in the emperor's name.
For Di Renjie, the most obvious change was that his career began to flourish. He successively served as Prefect of Ningzhou, Right Assistant Director of Wenchang, and Prefect of Yuzhou. In every post, he earned a reputation for good governance.
After all, Wu Zetian's true loyalists often behaved very differently when sent to the provinces. Some ordered more than 1,000 ancestral halls demolished. Others implicated thousands of people in collective punishment with a single stroke of the pen.
Compared with them, Di Renjie was lenient whenever he could be. He released people when the evidence allowed it and favored lighter treatment wherever possible. Set against those officials, he practically looked like a saint.
His approach was hardly in keeping with the methods favored by the Wu family's inner circle.
It was therefore no surprise that members of the Wu family eventually pinned a charge of treason on him and threw him into prison.
To avoid being tortured into a false confession and dying unjustly in prison, Old Di decided to cooperate.
Yes. I really rebelled.]