After the rewards bestowed upon the aristocratic clans and powerful families of each province of the Immortal Dynasty had concluded, Liang Zhaohuang had assumed the imperial edict was nearly finished.
Yet unexpectedly, after the aristocratic clans and powerful families, the edict contained further provisions—also rewards for merit and grants—but this time, the recipients were certain commandery clans.
However, these commandery clans were rather special. They all resided within Si Province, Yong Province, Yu Province, Yan Province, and Ji Province, the five provinces controlled by the imperial house.
The commandery clans in these provinces all survived by attaching themselves to the imperial house and maintained close ties with it. Some were like the Xie Family of Yan Province, known as Orchid and Jade, which had frequently intermarried with the imperial house; others had served the imperial house as servant cultivators for generations, such as commandery clans descended from palace inner officials; still others supplied soldiers and cultivators to the imperial house's military forces.
It could be said that they essentially existed to serve the imperial house and were the clans most intimately connected to it.
Among the Immortal Dynasty's aristocratic clans and powerful families, there was a private name for the commandery clans of these five provinces: the Five Mausoleum Commandery Clans.
This name carried two meanings. One was that each of these five provinces contained imperial mausoleums, temples, and the like built by the imperial house to suppress and control the provinces.
Thus, the commandery clans of the five provinces were also called the Five Mausoleum Commandery Clans.
The other meaning was that the commandery clans of these five provinces had served the imperial house for thousands of years and remained under its control, with little hope of advancing any further.
Take the Xie Family of Orchid and Jade, for