Zhuge Liang watched the children go, a gentle smile flickering in his eyes, and grew still more curious about the Son of Heaven in Ye City.
Over these past days, he had learned a great deal about the Son of Heaven's deeds from Qingzhu.
When he first heard how the Son of Heaven had endured under Yuan Shao for so long before turning the tables and seizing power in a single stroke, he thought this was an emperor of profound calculation;
When he then heard that the Son of Heaven had executed the entire Yuan Clan and slain Xun Chen in the court hall, he thought the Son of Heaven's methods were iron and blood, cold and merciless;
When he heard how the Son of Heaven had used a small stratagem to make the Great Aristocratic Families compete to donate and vie for reputations for charity, all to settle the displaced common people, he thought the Son of Heaven had mastered the art of wielding power;
Later, when he heard that the Son of Heaven often went outside the city to inspect the displaced people's living conditions, publicly acknowledged his own failings before the common people, spared no money or resources to settle the displaced, and made the Xiongnu pay for commoners' lives with their heads, he thought... this might very well be a Sagely Son of Heaven who could bring the Han Dynasty out of darkness and back into the light.
Patient and calculating, cold and merciless toward enemies, balancing kindness and authority toward ministers, ruthless and iron-blooded toward foreign tribes, compassionate and forgiving toward the common people.
He resembled both Emperor Wen and Emperor Wu.
Most importantly, this Son of Heaven was only twenty, just like him, having only just reached the age of adulthood. Yet this young