Divine Capital.
The government offices at the Peak of the Thirty-Six Hanging Mountains.
The blazing sun beat down in late July, and cicadas chirped without end.
In the Southern Office's command headquarters, Ouyang Jin, Scholar, and Twin Whips bent over their desks processing documents, all three looking haggard.
During the War for National Destiny, two major events had occurred.
First, Emperor Jingde had been murdered. Everyone at court and beyond knew, and the ministers were shaken and furious.
It had all begun with one tiny detail.
The civil and military officials and palace eunuchs had gone to the Ancestral Hall to pay their respects as usual. The eunuchs presented platters of fruit: grapes, crabapples, lychees, peaches, plums, and others.
"Emperor Jingde" had eaten only the lychees.
The members of the Imperial Family in the Imperial Clan Court were horrified. As soon as they left the Ancestral Hall, they declared that the Former Emperor had passed away.
Emperor Jingde had loathed lychees since childhood and never touched them. He could not possibly have eaten them with such relish.
Coupled with the Former Emperor's silence and his display of nothing but anger and hatred, this was conclusive.
The ministers were certain: the Former Emperor had been murdered, and the figure in the Ancestral Hall was merely a false body.
Public opinion in the Capital boiled over, and Grand Court Audiences were held one after another.
Fortunately, the Empress Dowager turned a deaf ear to it all and remained firmly on the Regent King's side.
Furthermore, every member of the Grand Secretariat had been promoted by the Prince. The Land of All Under Heaven's Decrees maintained its silence.
With neither the sovereign nor the chief ministers taking a position, the crisis was contained for the time being.
The second event was an uprising