Zhengda First Year of Yan State.
Mingyuan First Year of Liang State.
Both states announced new era names at the same time, but for different reasons.
For Yan State, more than two hundred years after founding its state in Liaodong, it had finally crossed the Yellow River for the first time and possessed land belonging to the Yan People south of the river. From Liaodong to Hexi, a territory stretching thousands of li belonged to the Yan People, and even Chang'an had been recovered.
These people, once exiled and subjected to countless hardships and dangers, could return to their Ancestral Temple, offer sacrifices to their ancestors, and proudly recount Yan State's present glory.
This was a historical burden weighing upon Yan State. Their exile was something that pierced the entire people to the heart whenever they remembered it. Unless they could make good that regret, the Yan State people would forever have a piece missing from their hearts.
Their return to the Central Plains had been just such a moment, a crest in the tide of feeling throughout Yan State. The unity of the Yan People then had reached an almost unimaginable degree.
After returning to the Central Plains, Yan State had wanted more. Murong Chui's capture of Chang'an had been deeply unwelcome to the Empress Dowager, but to most Yan People, it was an event that stirred their hearts. After all, when they had been exiled, the Han Dynasty's emperor had issued the order from Chang'an City. And now?
The Han Dynasty's emperor had already turned to dust!
Yet the descendants of those exiles had returned to Chang'an from that distant wasteland, that uninhabited wilderness where survival itself had been almost impossible, and sat within the emperor's former Weiyang Palace and Changle Palace.
Was this not the most satisfying