The Emperor had passed away. This was a national mourning, and the news had to be proclaimed throughout the realm.
Yet a country could not go a single day without a ruler. Before holding the Emperor's funeral, a new monarch had to be enthroned first.
The new monarch would preside over the late Emperor's funeral.
At present, the only new monarch Prime Minister Wen Gang and the others could support was Crown Prince Ji Ao.
In truth, before the ministers returned to Luoyi and ultimately decided to enthrone the Crown Prince as the new monarch, they had considered many vicious schemes.
For instance, Minister of War Ban Di had proposed that they try to seal off news of the late Emperor's death and use some other urgent matter, or an Imperial Decree in the late Emperor's name, to summon the Fourth Prince and Seventh Prince back to Luoyi at once.
They could discuss everything else afterward.
At that time, whether they placed the Fourth Prince or Seventh Prince under house arrest, or enthroned either one of them, it would spare them a great deal of trouble.
Under normal circumstances, Minister of War Ban Di's strategy had been feasible.
But Benevolent Sovereign Ji Long's assassination had occurred in full view of the public, witnessed personally by several thousand Great Zhou nobles.
Under such circumstances, sealing off the news was simply an impossible task.
In the end, Minister of War Ban Di's strategy was tossed into a corner.
As Prime Minister Wen Gang put it, news of the late Emperor's death had likely already spread among the powerful figures in every direction. How could they possibly speak of sealing it off?
What mattered most now was to establish legitimacy first.
What was legitimacy?
Whatever the Luoyi nobles supported was legitimacy.
Whoever could