Sky Screen: Exposing the Ideologies of the Various States

In the ninth year of the Zhenguan era, a sky screen suddenly appeared.

It stretched across the heavens, blotting out the sky and sun, showing the subjects of the prosperous Tang dynasty a vision of the many nations a thousand years in the future. Yet what the sky screen revealed was neither the rise and fall of dynasties nor the secrets of emperors and ministers, but a strange concept the people of the Tang had never heard of: ideology.

When the words “Confucian capitalism” slowly appeared on the sky screen, and Singapore’s towering skyscrapers faced off across time against Chang’an, with its horsemen and camel bells, the entire era was shaken and bewildered as never before.

Li Shimin gazed up at the heavens and asked, “Can this thing bring order to the realm?”

Kong Yingda rebuked him: “Putting Confucianism and commerce on equal footing is a desecration of sacred learning!”

Wei Zheng pondered: “Can profit and righteousness truly never be reconciled?” The sky screen opened once every seventy-two days, and each time, it tore apart the Tang people’s understanding of the world.