GBP 002 The years when achievements and friendships were intertwined (727-734)
002 The years when achievements and friendships were intertwined (727-734)
Zhang Shougui (684-740) was a famous general of the Tang Dynasty during the Kaiyuan era. He was from Hebei, Shanzhou.
He was a man of outstanding military achievements, renowned throughout the frontier, yet he was ultimately demoted for concealing defeats and died in despair. History meticulously records his merits and demerits, but fails to mention that in his turbulent life, a lonely soul from a thousand years later became both the brightest light and the deepest pain in his heart.
Zhen Xiaosi, a time-space observer from the 22nd century AD. Due to a particle storm, she fell into the timeline of the fourth year of the Kaiyuan era. For her, who could control the rhythm of life, the seventeen years of the Tang Dynasty were merely seventeen months of her mission.
Her first stop was the residence of the famous prime minister Zhang Yue. Zhang Yue's wisdom and literary talent gave her the warmth of the early Tang Dynasty, but that affection, like a spring breeze, was more like a preview of an era.
Until she traveled north to Youzhou to investigate the psychological changes of military generals in border towns, she met Zhang Shougui, a young general with piercing eyes who was training in the drill ground. For him, it was a fleeting glance that sparked deep feelings; for her, he was a target of observation, but ultimately she fell for him.
Their story resonates with the epic tales of the empire's frontiers.
The Tibetan cavalry suddenly arrived, and the walls of Guazhou crumbled. Amidst the city's panic, the newly appointed prefect, Zhang Shougui, held a banquet on the city wall, reveling in music and song. Suspecting an ambush, the Tibetans hesitated and refused to retreat, ultimately suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of the Tang army.
Zhen Xiaosi was no ordinary woman hiding in the mansion. She stood beside Zhang Shougui, her red dress fluttering alongside the battle flag. "General," she whispered, "there's a concept in psychology called 'information uncertainty deterrence.'" Though Zhang Shougui didn't understand the terminology, he read in her calm eyes a composure and wisdom that transcended her time. After defeating the enemy, he embraced her tightly amidst the ruins: "This victory is half thanks to your extraordinary spirit." She helped him draw up new city defense maps and introduced simple hygiene and epidemic prevention concepts, leading to the rapid recovery of Guazhou. He proudly reported his achievements to the court, but kept her contributions hidden in the softest corner of his heart, treasuring them like a precious gem.
Zhang Shougui was appointed Prefect of Youzhou, where he reformed military discipline and waited for an opportunity to defeat the enemy. He ultimately used a clever counter-espionage strategy to incite internal strife among the Khitan, who then beheaded their chieftain and presented his head as tribute, thus securing peace in the northern border. Emperor Xuanzong was overjoyed and wanted to appoint him as prime minister.
In the tent, Zhen Xiaosi used holographic projection to analyze the conflicts among the various Khitan tribes, pointing out the rift between Ketugan and Qula. "Yuanbao, winning hearts and minds is paramount," she emphasized. On the night of the victory celebration, with flames blazing, Zhang Shougui was surrounded by glory and praise. Zhen Xiaosi, however, frowned amidst the clamor. She saw her generals growing increasingly arrogant, and she saw the growing obsession in his eyes with a perfect record of military achievements.
Late at night, she removed his armor and said frankly, "The decline of a great general often begins with not tolerating a single defeat. I hope you will always keep your original aspirations, never deceive the emperor, and never deceive yourself." He kissed her forehead and made a promise that he would never let her down in this life.
When news arrived that Emperor Xuanzong intended to appoint him as prime minister, Chancellor Zhang Jiuling strongly advised against it, arguing that the rewards for merit were too generous. Zhen Xiaosi, however, breathed a sigh of relief and privately said, "The high halls of power are not as good as the realities of the frontier. This is where your true domain lies." He deeply agreed, unaware that while this avoided the turmoil of the court, it also led him to place all his value on frontier achievements, sowing the seeds of tragedy.
In the twenty-sixth year of the Kaiyuan era, Zhang Shougui's generals Zhao Kan and Bai Zhentuo, under false pretenses, forced Pinglu's army to attack the Xi, initially winning but later suffering a major defeat.
This was two years after the unheeded advice of 738.
To preserve his reputation, Zhang Shougui chose to conceal his defeat and falsely report his victories. When the truth came out, although he was spared death due to his past merits, he was eventually demoted to Kuozhou, where he soon died of a carbuncle on his back.
When news of the defeat first reached the military governor's residence, Zhen Xiaosi's system had already issued a warning of a "critical turning point in history." She grasped his arm, her eyes filled with insightful observations and pleading, the culmination of a thousand years of history:
"Yuanbao, listen to me! Victory and defeat are common occurrences in war. Which famous general, Li Jing or Li Ji, has never suffered a defeat? Honestly admitting defeat is merely a temporary setback; deceiving the emperor and concealing it is an abyss of eternal damnation! Your emperor is a wise ruler, and your achievements cannot be erased. This one wrong thought will not protect your reputation, but will erode your very foundation!"
However, Zhang Shougui at that time was already swayed by the empty title of "Ever-Victorious General" and his obsession with perfect achievements. He brushed her hand away, his eyes struggling yet resolute: "Si'er, you don't understand... I can't afford to lose this defeat. Not only me, but the prestige of the entire Youzhou army cannot be tarnished by this."
She understood; it was precisely because she understood the ruthlessness of history that she felt such despair. She watched him weave lies, watched him bribe the imperial envoy, watched him grow increasingly haggard amidst false reports of victory. The spirited young general who once stood atop the walls of Guazhou had finally been bent under the weight of the golden shackles he himself had forged.
On the eve of his departure from the capital, after the decree of his exile was issued, he held her hand tightly for the last time, his palm burning hot: "Wait for me... perhaps there will be a day when I am recalled." Zhen Xiaosi's tears rolled down her cheeks, but she shook her head: "My time... is running out." Her body was already unsteady due to the aftereffects of the time travel and the immense grief.
She placed the specially made sand she always carried with her into his hand—it was made of 22nd-century materials, flowing extremely slowly, with the sand in the upper half seemingly never running out. "Look at it, Yuanbao. Every grain of sand that falls here represents a day in my world; in your world, it might be a year. But no matter how it flows, our time truly existed for each other."
Not long after he went south, her figure vanished completely from her residence in Chang'an, as if she had never existed. Only the crystal that sealed the starry sky of Guazhou remained on the table, coldly reflecting the moonlight of the Tang Dynasty.
Zhen Xiaosi ultimately failed to make the trip to Kuozhou.
The shadow of the An Lushan Rebellion was beginning to gather, and the situation on the border was tense, making it almost impossible for a woman to travel alone.
Her temporal and spatial energy rapidly depleted after Zhang Shougui's departure. Though her physical form dissipated, her consciousness lingered in her old house in Chang'an in a peculiar way, like an obsessive program. She could only remain there, commemorating him in another way: she began writing "Thirty Years on the Frontier," recording Zhang Shougui's life and the light and shadow of this era.
While writing, she often had hallucinations, as if Zhang Shougui were sitting opposite her, listening to her read the paragraphs she had written, and then offering suggestions for revision.
“This is written in too literary a style,” I imagined him saying, still with that cheerful yet tired look. “We martial artists don’t speak so formally.”
"Then how should I write it?" she asked the air, her pen hovering.
He wrote: 'The snow was so heavy that night, even the knife was frozen to the touch. But knowing that someone in Chang'an was waiting for the letter, I didn't feel the cold anymore.'
She changed it as he suggested, then softly asked the void, "Do you still feel cold now?"
There was no answer. Only the eternal sound of the wind outside the window, passing through the increasingly desolate city of Chang'an.
In the fourteenth year of the Tianbao era, the An Lushan Rebellion broke out.
When An Lushan's name resounded throughout Chang'an like a plague, Zhen Xiaosi's remaining consciousness was already very weak. She asked someone (it is unknown which old servant sympathized with her) to bring a replica of the specially made hourglass—for all these years, she had "existed" beside it, the repeated flow of sand recording her completely different perception of time from that of ordinary people.
"Madam, the rebels are about to reach Chang'an, we have to leave..." The maid's anxious voice came in the hallucination.
Zhen Xiaosi shook her head, her invisible thoughts focusing on the hourglass. Only a few grains of sand remained in the upper half, slowly flowing down to the lower half.
Seventeen months have passed again.
From Zhang Shuo's death to meeting Zhang Shougui: seventeen months.
From meeting Zhang Shougui to losing him: seventeen months.
From the time Zhang Shougui was lost until now: how many seventeen-month periods have passed?
She couldn't figure it out.
Time had become completely chaotic; her perceptions, the external world, and the course of history were all tangled together, like a knotted ball of silk.
As the last grain of sand fell, she heard the sound of hooves—not the iron hooves of the rebels, but the sound from the depths of her memory: the hooves of horses patrolling in the snowy night of Beiting, the hooves of horses chasing after the enemy under the walls of Guazhou, the hooves of horses bringing news of victory from the border of Youzhou. And there was Zhang Shougui's voice, in some distant, real time and space, saying: "If time is a river, I wish to be two boats, each crossing its own stream, returning together to the vast sea."
She closed her "eyes," and the hourglass slipped from her invisible control, shattering into countless points of light on the bluestone floor.
Each grain of sand shimmered with a faint golden light, like the reflection of the desert at midday in Guazhou, like snowflakes under the moon in Beiting, like all the love, advice, and farewells that were left unspoken throughout the long years.
At the true end of time, perhaps all the misaligned rivers will eventually converge. At that time, Zhang Yue, in his prime, writing with great skill, Zhang Shougui, heroic and guarding the border, and Zhen Xiaosi, forever frozen at a certain psychological age, carrying memories of the future, will complete this peaceful encounter that is seventeen years late—or only seventeen months late—in an eternity without hourglasses.
The Old Book of Tang, Biography of Zhang Shougui, records: "Shougui died and was posthumously awarded the title of Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent."
The New Book of Tang adds: "He was skilled in riding and archery, generous in nature, and had meritorious service on the frontier."
There was not a single word mentioning Zhen Xiaosi.
However, in the court archives at the end of the Kaiyuan era, there is an inconspicuous record: "Zhenshi, wife of the late prime minister Zhang Yue, never married again in her life. She once made an ingenious hourglass, which was very accurate in telling time. It was lost during the chaos."
The fragments of that hourglass may still be buried somewhere in Chang'an. If archaeologists discover them one day, they will be puzzled by its unusual materials and design: why was the flow rate of this hourglass designed to be so slow? Who would need to use it to measure a time so different from the mundane?
They would never know that it was a woman's ruler for measuring love—measuring two deep affections forcibly separated by time and space, measuring the bridge that only the heart could cross between seventeen months and seventeen years.
The upper half of the hourglass represents her time, while the lower half represents his history; her love is as fleeting as a spark, while his achievements are as enduring as mountains and rivers, yet in the instant the hourglass turns, a kind of tragic symmetry is achieved.
History itself is the greatest hourglass.
Every grain of sand is a life, a love story, a legend.
They flowed and fell at their own speeds, eventually converging into what we call the "Tang Dynasty," that vast, brilliant, and merciless sea of time.