Turning Hands into Clouds

One great advantage of strongman politics was that the supreme leader's will could be carried out directly, without being checked and obstructed from every side—even if the decree wholly violated established rites.

As the posthumous edict was issued, and as the Prime Minister's third son calmly accepted the investiture, the fact that the Great Yan Dynasty was about to welcome its first king of a different surname since its founding swiftly spread across the realm under the court's propaganda machine.

By custom, a crowd of people should have leapt out at this time to remonstrate that the move violated ritual propriety. Yet apart from a handful of stubborn old pedants, the court officials were all strongly in favor of it.

Ever since the old emperor's death and the Prime Minister's disappearance, the two "new rulers" who truly held the court in their grasp had maintained a silent standoff. The tension born of that silence was enough to drive one mad. Given a little more time, ministers like them might have had to kneel and beg the two of them to communicate with each other.

Now that the posthumous edict had been made public, a great stone in their hearts had finally fallen to the ground.

No matter how greatly these two "new rulers" differed in their plans for the future, at this moment they had ultimately chosen to continue the cooperation between the previous generation's emperor and prime minister. Yet when those with sharp eyes repeatedly parsed the document proclaimed to all under heaven, certain improper signs gradually caught the attention of the highest-ranking nobles.

To ordinary officials, the Nine Bestowments and the other rewards were honors beyond compare, but to the Xu Family, they were utterly dispensable empty titles.

The establishment of an independent office with the Three Excellencies