Yunqi said, "I support Eunuch He."
Hearing this answer, the students from the Qi State Academy were astonished. What they had wanted to ask was their teacher's assessment of Zhao's political situation, not whom he supported.
To their minds, the answer to the latter was a foregone conclusion.
He Zhan controlled Zhao's court, deceiving the sovereign and humiliating his master. Above all, he was a eunuch, and his reputation was far worse even than that of the cruel, bloodthirsty White Emperor. Who would support him?
Though astonished, the students still listened earnestly, because they believed their teacher must have his reasons.
Just last year, he had lavishly praised the Chu Emperor even before the emperor burned his palace and died for his country. Who had understood him then?
"The Prince of Hejian is a commandery prince. He has no right to enter the Imperial Ancestral Temple."
Yunqi's explanation was exactly the same as what He Zhan had said on the long street that day.
One student said, "But he is, after all, the Zhao Emperor's biological father."
"It is perfectly natural that the bond between father and son should be hard to forget. The problem is, if the emperor insists that the Prince of Hejian is his father, he should never have entered the Capital in the first place."
Yunqi said, "The previous Zhao Emperor was generous and enlightened. Would he have punished you simply for not wanting to be emperor? It was only that the people of Hejian Prefecture could not bear to let it go."
After hearing this, the students considered it carefully and found that this was indeed the case.
"Whether you acknowledge a thief as your father or an emperor as your father, once you have acknowledged him, you must stand by it."
Yunqi took a