After the assembled ministers paid their respects in unison, the Three Excellencies and Nine Ministers, the kings, the high-ranking marquises, and the other leading dignitaries of the realm stepped forward in order to offer their greetings.
Of the three Luo children who had come to Chang'an this time, Luo Lan was the Marquis of Unshuang and concurrently commander of the Temple Army, a major power in the Western Regions.
As soon as she arrived in Chang'an, she entered the Imperial Palace with the Marquis of Anyang to meet the emperor and Huo Guang. It was also an opportunity to report on her duties and explain the current situation in the Western Regions to the emperor. The Eastern King of Dayuan and the King of Wusun were both rather long-lived and currently showed no signs of dying.
Luo Qing was Libationer of the Imperial Academy and Director of the Directorate of Astronomy, holding the court's most prestigious and unsullied offices. He was a senior dignitary of the full Two-Thousand-Shi rank and also one of the teachers responsible for instructing Liu She.
Well...
What Luo Qing taught Liu She was not the arts of imperial manipulation and balancing power, but orthodox Confucianism, Daoism, and the Huang-Lao School.
With Emperor Li and Crown Prince Ci serving as cautionary examples, the Empress Dowager and Huo Guang naturally could not help bending the crooked branch too far the other way when educating the dynasty's future successor.
Liu She was somewhat soft in temperament, so soft that he had little ambition. Indeed, because the Imperial Throne had come to him so easily, he had little desire even for Imperial Authority.
An emperor who wanted a minister like Huo Guang, who held the reins of government, to keep working for a few more years was quite an