"If this goes on, our Great Wei will perish at the hands of these petty villains!"
Inside the Imperial Secretariat, several ministers sat with extremely solemn expressions.
They had watched Cao Mao's many recent appointments and policies, anger simmering in their hearts.
Although they owed their current positions to Cao Mao's promotions, they found the emperor's conduct increasingly intolerable.
The ministers had already been dissatisfied when Zhuge Dan became Grand Commandant, and then Wang Su had immediately become Minister over the Masses.
This had thoroughly enraged many ministers in the Imperial Secretariat.
In truth, this was not simply a dispute over the Three Excellencies. Exalted as those offices were, the Imperial Secretariat was, after all, the institution that actually governed the realm.
This was really a factional struggle. The ministers of the Imperial Secretariat considered both Zhuge Dan and Wang Su members of the Sima Family's faction.
Both families had marriage ties with Sima Zhao, as did Wang Chang.
His grandson had married Sima Zhao's daughter.
Cao Mao's coup had reshuffled the forces at court, giving rise to the Imperial Faction led by Xun Kai.
Although the faction Xun Kai led was called the Imperial Faction, and had indeed been fostered by Cao Mao himself, it was not remotely a faction loyal to the emperor. They really ought to have been called the Profiteering Great Clans Faction. After losing their leader, they had swiftly banded together to prevent the emperor from picking them off one by one.
They were eager to reestablish the rules so their interests would not be trampled, and the emperor's many policies had only hastened cooperation within this interest group.
Opposing them were the Sima Family's former trusted ministers-or, rather, the ministers who had not profited from the coup.
Since these men had gained no direct