After the connection closed, Lin Cuo sat in the Hall of Government Affairs for a long time. He realized he had nearly exhausted his own credibility.
But the Great Han's Imperial Lineage still had some left. More precisely, the Great Han in this timeline had retained an enormous reserve of credibility for nearly two thousand years.
Lin Cuo had the Ministry of Rites retrieve the complete ceremonial procedures for the Luo River oath. The origins of this institution could be traced back to the Guangwu Dynasty.
Zhu Wei had taken part in the internal power struggles of the Gengshi regime and had a blood feud with Liu Xiu over the death of Liu Xiu's brother. Later, he held Luoyang, unable to advance or retreat. Yet when Liu Xiu urged him to surrender, he pointed to the river and swore that, provided Zhu Wei submitted, he would not pursue their old grievances.
The Book of the Later Han recorded the essence of it in a single sentence:
"With this river as witness, I will not break my word." Zhu Wei finally surrendered, and Liu Xiu did not settle scores afterward. Instead, he preserved Zhu Wei's office and noble rank.
Over the following dynasties, the Ritualists formalized this story into the Luo River oath. Mountains and rivers became more than divine witnesses: they became part of a political ceremony in which imperial authority publicly accepted the consequences of breaking its word.
Once the Son of Heaven or the Regent swore an oath before the Luo River, breaking it meant more than violating a private promise.
It also meant damaging the credibility of the Ancestral Temple. Allied nations could invoke the oath to terminate treaties, armies could refuse personal orders that contradicted it, and Court Historians would place the oath-breaker on the same