"Hey, why has the wind picked up?"
The execution supervisor looked at the dark clouds blanketing the sky and was utterly shocked.
Since the Han Dynasty, the Confucian School had emphasized "the resonance between Heaven and man," using celestial changes to restrain unbridled emperors.
Celestial changes often signified that a ruler had lost his virtue.
For example, solar eclipses, earthquakes, heavy snow, floods... and so on.
When the Imperial Edict had just been read, it had still been a clear, sunny noon.
Yet in only a moment, dark clouds had covered the sky and fierce winds had risen.
The flagpoles on the drill ground were blown askew! The Great Ming banners were whipped and tugged about as if they were being yanked around in nonsense.
This was no ordinary wind.
The execution supervisor was terrified, and the executioners' legs trembled even more fiercely.
Countless commoners, their eyes brimming with tears, watched from behind the soldiers' blockade.
"Look, the sky has darkened!"
"The fierce wind is here!"
"Th-this means there's an injustice!" someone suddenly said.
"The Former Yuan had a famous play, The Injustice to Dou E. They say snow fell in June. Now that Master Yu and the other lords are being executed, perhaps snow will fall in the first lunar month!"
Yu Qian and the others were to be executed in February, which was the first month of the lunar calendar.
It was normally the season for snow.
So, sudden clouds and snowfall were not especially strange.
But the commoners all understood that Dou E's injustice had been the injustice of one household, while Yu Qian's injustice was the injustice of an entire nation.
People had hearts of flesh.
Everyone knew that Yu Qian had originally been Vice Minister of War. When the crisis came, under the orders of