What? Li Shimin doesn't exist in this timeline?
Bright and glorious is the Tang, favored by Heaven to rule all nations.
Our ancestors answered Heaven's call, and the four branches followed its laws.
They bestowed blessings without end, and made us one in virtue.
Their descendants carry on the legacy, and serve the gods beside the Pole Star.
He Zhizhang's poem “Taihe” captures the Tang Dynasty's awe-inspiring might over all nations. As the true founder of the Tang, Li Shimin, the Son of Heaven and Khan of Heaven, could be called the strongest carbon-based life-form on Earth in the sixth century AD. On the day Emperor Taizong died, envoys from all the nations who had come to Chang'an to pay tribute heard the news and wept bitterly. Countless people cut off their ears or slashed their faces in grief. Some went even further: Ashina Du'er of the Turkic royal clan and Qibi Heli of the Tiele royal clan asked to be buried alive with Emperor Taizong. Just what kind of charisma did our Emperor Taizong possess?
But what would the Tang Dynasty have been like without Li Shimin?
In this Tang Dynasty, a young herdsman from beyond the frontier has a strange dream. He transmigrates into the body of a modern young office drone and spends several months experiencing the splendor of modern city life. He reads about a Tang Dynasty in history that is entirely different from the one he knows, about the Son of Heaven and Khan of Heaven, and about a century of humiliation. What changes will he bring to the Tang when he returns?
I rated it myself 🤦