What happened next was almost exactly what Li Wei had expected.
The plays performed by these two troupes were indeed meant to provoke.
The Sacred Hymn Troupe performed "Hymn to the Holy Lord," a fairly famous large-scale play. It told the story of a group of Holy Lord Church missionaries arriving in a savage land, whose people were crude, barbaric, and utterly devoid of reverence for the Holy Lord. Yet even when faced with such people, the missionaries tried everything they could to move their hearts, fighting alongside them against terrifying monsters. In the process, the Holy Lord manifested and destroyed the king of monsters, and the barbarians set aside their prejudices to become his devout believers.
Taken on its own, it was merely a story in which the Holy Lord Church praised the Holy Lord's great power.
But performed now, while the Empire was suppressing the Holy Lord Church-heh, who were the barbarians, and who was the king of monsters?
The Glorious Troupe made much the same choice. Their play was "Fran III," about a notorious tyrant in Francisian history who had ruled Francis through brutal, bloody methods before the people overthrew him and sent him to the gallows.
This, too, was a very famous Francisian play. After all, this was the only thing Francisians knew how to do.
Not that they had ever accomplished much with it.
Li Wei generally held Francisians in contempt. He came from a country that specialized in rebellion, after all. In his eyes, the Francisians' so-called "resistance for freedom" was ultimately more about the thrill of a rush of blood to the head than any plan for lasting peace and stability.
As far as Li Wei remembered, those who successfully overthrew previous dynasties in history had their own ideas and plans for governing.