At noon, Xie Jinhuan followed the delegation to the Altar of Heaven and Earth outside the city.
The Altar of Heaven and Earth was something of a temple for the Blessing and Sacrifice Faction. Rather than the various gods, it enshrined the Heavenly Father and Earthly Mother. There were no divine statues or similar objects inside, only a nine-tier white stone altar.
Offerings had already been laid out below the Altar of Heaven and Earth, with all three sacrificial animals-pigs, cattle, and sheep-present. More than a hundred sacrificers in strange costumes and masks of gods and ghosts were also making preparations.
The viewing stands around the perimeter were filled with envoys from the Western Regions and Desert North. Xie Jinhuan had even met a few envoys from small fence-sitting kingdoms at Empress He's birthday banquet. He had also encountered the braided foreign envoy among them once on his way here. After making a few inquiries, he learned that the man was Tuoba Zhe, State Preceptor of the Shajie Kingdom.
Although the title of State Preceptor sounded imposing, the Shajie Kingdom was merely a small country with a population of less than a million, so Tuoba Zhe was naturally all but invisible among the envoys.
Great Qian and Northern Zhou were evenly matched, so their viewing position was in the middle. Fang Anguo, Northern Zhou's Minister of Rites, who was accompanying the envoys, was still explaining things to the foreign delegations:
"This Altar of Heaven and Earth was built after the Human Emperor united the world. Its first High Sacrificer was the Witch Ancestor Zhu Man. Over the thousands of years since, it has been renovated and rebuilt several times, but its location and layout have never changed. Where we stand now is where the Human Emperor watched the ceremonies in