During the Former Han era, the aristocracy and scholars had been powerful, but in the Later Han, only the maternal relatives could fight the eunuchs on equal terms. Every struggle by the scholars would end in failure.
After the emperor issued an edict denouncing him, displaying an utterly unrepentant attitude, Luo Chuan knew that the Great Han was doomed.
Inside Marquis Ying's Residence, a group of scholars of varying ages knelt on their heels, enveloped in a cloud of gloom.
The emperor had pardoned their capital offenses, merely barring these scholars from political life. Those who had fled could now return home.
The scholars lowered their clasped hands to the ground, then their foreheads, actually performing before Luo Chuan the Kowtow Rite, the most solemn form of the Three Kneels and Nine Bows. This was a ceremony subjects performed before their sovereign only on grand ceremonial occasions.
Naturally, Luo Chuan hurried to stop them, but even the most rigidly orthodox Confucian scholars insisted on completing the rite.
"Lord Zichuan, without your protection, I fear this old man, all our younger kinsmen, and these scholars would have died at the eunuchs' hands.
"For the grace of giving us a second life, a mere kowtow is hardly excessive."
Luo Chuan shook his head. "It was nothing. I could only offer what little help I could. The Edict of Political Banishment has yet to be lifted. What do you intend to do after returning home?"
At the words "political banishment," everyone fell silent. The grief and indignation in their eyes were almost impossible to restrain, along with despair whose depths could scarcely be fathomed.
Cultivate oneself, bring order to one's family, govern the state, bring peace to All Under Heaven!
What scholar did not harbor the great ambition to govern the state and