As for matters of selecting things, Empress Zong would from time to time ask the Crown Princess for her opinion as well.

This small detail naturally did not escape the notice of those around them, and left them all quietly astonished. Who could have imagined that a merchant’s daughter with no family background whatsoever would carve out such a flourishing, assured position for herself among the members of the imperial family?

Those who had previously looked down on this Crown Princess in private now found themselves, when they glanced at her again, seeing a woman of unfathomable depth and quiet formidability.

Su Luoyun herself, however, felt nothing of the sort. When Han Yao relayed to her how the other ladies had described her, Su Luoyun was the first to break into laughter: “I am nowhere near as mysterious as they make me out to be. Besides, you know perfectly well what I am capable of — I am simply hiding behind your Imperial Elder Brother and borrowing his prestige to put on airs.”

Han Yao was playing with the tiger-head shoes and rattles she had brought along as gifts, and said lightly: “I wanted to laugh when I heard it too. They simply do not understand sister-in-law’s true character — they can only guess blindly… But I hear that Fang the Second has recently slipped back to the capital behind her father’s back and gone to make a scene at the Yunxiao Prince’s residence, demanding to see her son and trying to take the young Shizi back with her.”

Perhaps because things had gone badly for her in Han Linfeng’s regard, Fang Jinshu’s maternal instincts seemed to have revived somewhat. She made a great weeping scene, which put the Yunxiao Prince in an exceedingly awkward position.

He had quite clearly been entrusted by the Grand Emperor to look after the young prince on his behalf — yet with Fang Jinshu creating this uproar, it looked as though he had seized another woman’s child and forced a mother and son apart. In the end, there was nothing to be done; the child was let go, and Fang Jinshu took him away.

In any case, the Grand Emperor was no longer in any condition to concern himself with such affairs. These past few days he had been refusing all nourishment, and it had taken the eunuchs a long time to coax even a little broth past his lips.

Those who were older understood: the Grand Emperor’s allotted span of years had run its course. And so for the past several days, the Emperor had been keeping personal vigil at the Grand Emperor’s bedside, accompanied by several of his most senior ministers.

This was, of course, partly the devotion of a younger generation to an elder — but Han Yi’s presence there was also a performance for the court to witness.

After all, he was not the Grand Emperor’s direct lineal descendant, and had received the throne through abdication. Were the Grand Emperor to pass away quietly and without ceremony, it would look very poor by any measure.

But now, with his robes unloosened, his hair disheveled, even morning court suspended, and the assembled ministers keeping watch alongside him — everyone could see for themselves that the Grand Emperor’s meals and care were being properly attended to.

When the span of years had run its course and death came in its time, the passing would be plain for all to see.

And so, amid the continuous sounds of weeping within and without the Grand Emperor’s bedchamber, the Grand Emperor — who had been melancholy and despondent ever since his abdication — finally breathed his last.

With the eunuch’s resounding cry of “The Grand Emperor has passed!” the subdued sobs instantly gave way to a great wailing chorus. All of Great Wei entered the mourning period: three months of observance for the Grand Emperor, with prohibitions on weddings and on music and entertainment of any kind.

At the same time, however, and for reasons no one could quite identify, rumors began to circulate among the common people that Han Yi and his son had usurped the throne and done away with the Grand Emperor.

This was baseless nonsense with no foundation whatsoever — but the Emperor’s recent push to implement the land equalization reforms had exposed a great many powerful gentry who had previously underreported their private landholdings. Considerable acreage had been confiscated and redistributed as penalties, and a number of those who had attempted to obstruct the new laws had been clapped in irons and thrown into prison.

In this climate, the new Emperor and his son had made enemies of a great many powerful interests at court. The rumors, as a result, were like dry wood meeting a hidden ember — they blazed up and spread, generating ever more versions of the tale.

Yet slander of this kind, with neither evidence nor foundation, was difficult to prosecute. To actually arrest people over it would only make things look even more like a guilty conscience at work.

Han Yi understood full well: those who stood high and accomplished great things could not possibly avoid gathering a measure of resentment and blame. What mattered most at present was getting land into the hands of peasants who had none, and filling the national treasury.

So long as the common people had clothes on their backs, rice in their bowls, and could care properly for their wives, children, and aging parents — who among them would trouble themselves over palace intrigue?

Those rumors were nothing more than the futile thrashings of ants attempting to shake a great tree.

But the Grand Emperor had passed, and the matter of his burial had now to be settled. When discussions turned to the scale of the funeral rites, Han Yi’s view was that they should be neither too sparse nor too lavish — but neither could they simply replicate in full the elaborate funeral arrangements that Emperor Weihui had drawn up for himself during his own lifetime.

This Grand Emperor had, during his years on the throne, developed a near-obsession with building burial mounds. He had constructed multiple decoy tombs alone, and his stipulations for his own funeral rites and burial goods were exhaustively detailed.

But grand funeral ceremonies of that magnitude required enormous sums of money to carry out.

When Han Yi saw the estimated figures submitted by the Ministry of Rites, he immediately waved it away. The amount was far too large. If they buried the Grand Emperor at that scale, the people of Great Wei would all have to go without eating.

His second son’s recent wedding had been conducted with every possible economy — it had not even compared favorably to the ceremony of a wealthy commoner household. Scaling back the Grand Emperor’s funeral was, by any measure, entirely reasonable.

But then a number of troublemaking old ministers began weeping and wailing in the great hall over the Emperor’s intention to hold a simple funeral, declaring loudly that the Grand Emperor had died with his eyes open in discontent, his last wishes unfulfilled, and that they themselves were too incompetent to have done better by him. They begged the Emperor to put them to death and let them follow the Grand Emperor into the afterlife.

These old worthies were grandmasters of the art of trading on age and seniority, and they made no mention of the Grand Emperor’s extravagant ways during his lifetime. They only lamented that he had left the world too soon, abandoning the people of Great Wei, and leaving his loyal and devoted ministers uncertain of what to do with themselves.

The Emperor Han Yi sat on the throne throughout with a thoroughly dark expression.

These old wretches were nothing but loose skin draped over creaking bones — raising his voice to berate them, he feared he might inadvertently strike one dead with the shock. And each of these men was a living monument with some degree of distinguished service to his name: they tottered on the edge of the grave, yet killing any of them would gain nothing. Even an emperor could not easily afford to make enemies of them.

After all, with the Grand Emperor’s body not yet cold, if word spread that he had put old ministers to death as well, what would distinguish Han Yi from a treacherous usurper?

But if he heeded them and staged a lavish funeral, the national treasury genuinely had no funds to cover it. He could hardly divert silver earmarked for the people’s welfare and national governance.

Even when the two sons and their wives accompanied their father at mealtimes, Han Yi’s mood remained unresolved.

Su Luoyun, however, did not see this as a cause for distress. She spoke of it as idle talk: “Even among common folk, an elder’s funeral rites are not to be skimped on — otherwise the children are condemned as unfilial. But not every family can afford a proper ceremony either. Poorer families have their own ways. I remember during the two years I spent living quietly in the countryside, a poor scholar in the village lost his mother and had nothing like enough money. He had no choice but to go from door to door, thick-skinned, asking the neighbors to pay their condolence contributions early — pooling it together to buy a thin coffin and scrape together a funeral…”

At this, both Han Yi and Han Linfeng paused at the same moment and exchanged a glance.

Han Xiao, newly wed and still fresh from his wedding, knit his brows at this: “The approach you are describing is something only a poor and shabby household would resort to. Surely our father the Emperor cannot go around soliciting condolence money for the Grand Emperor’s funeral?”

Han Linfeng said slowly: “And why ever not? The national treasury is depleted — it is only right that the ministers contribute their efforts as well…”

Han Yi caught his meaning at once, his brow smoothing. “Very well. I leave this matter to you to handle.”

That very afternoon, the Ministry of Finance officials were divided by Crown Prince Han Linfeng into several teams and dispatched immediately. Their first destination was the residences of those old ministers who had wept and wailed the loudest in the hall. They hammered on the gates, and then, holding up promissory notes signed and sealed by the Emperor, they announced that His Majesty’s filial heart was boundless and that he intended to comply with the wishes of the honorable ministers and give the Grand Emperor a grand funeral. The only difficulty was that the national treasury lacked the funds, and so His Majesty could only ask the dear ministers to lend a sum first. Once the Grand Emperor had been seen off in proper style, repayment would follow in due course.

These old ministers stared in wide-eyed disbelief. They declared that in all their long years, they had never once seen the sovereign of a great nation go begging loans from his own subjects!

The lead official smiled pleasantly and said: “Thanks to the distinguished elder’s longevity, he has lived to witness it this very day. Our Emperor, mindful that the esteemed ministers might not have ready coin to hand, has said that if there is no cash available, land and property can serve as substitute — as long as sufficient funds can be raised!”

With that, he waved his hand and had the junior clerks behind him recite aloud the assessed value of each old minister’s properties and landholdings.

Was it not all about pledging loyalty to a dead man? Surely mere posturing and weeping would not suffice? Nothing short of genuine gold and silver, houses and fields, could demonstrate true loyalty.

These old ministers had previously witnessed the new Emperor’s street-market tactics firsthand in the great hall and knew he was not above low cunning — but they had never imagined he would use the pretext of raising funds for a funeral to come and rob them in broad daylight right at their own gates!

Naturally, the old ministers refused, glaring and declaring they would hand over neither land deeds nor property titles.

The Emperor then flatly dropped all pretense in the great hall and said: “Formerly, I comforted myself on behalf of the Grand Emperor that he had such a loyal and devoted cohort of ministers. I did not expect that when the moment came, all anyone could do was move their lips, while not a single one would open their purse. Was not every one of your family fortunes and honors a gift bestowed by the Grand Emperor? Can you truly bear to watch the Grand Emperor go to his grave in poverty? This loan for funeral expenses is a mirror of loyalty — and it will show clearly who among you is a false minister. Tomorrow I will post an imperial edict listing by name every false minister who refused to give — and if the Grand Emperor has any awareness in the afterlife, he will not forgive any of you miserly wretches!”

At this, the Lu Guo Gong and other noble families stepped forward to mediate, expressing their understanding of the current hardship in the national treasury. The funeral regulations for the Grand Emperor had, after all, been drawn up so long ago — at a time when the treasury had not yet been reduced to its present state of depletion. Were the Grand Emperor to know that his funeral was being conducted on such a grand scale, he himself would not be pleased. So the Emperor should do what was within his means and not go to unreasonable excess.

But once the Emperor’s show of filial devotion was in motion, it was not easy to suppress. A word uttered from the imperial mouth, if it was not going to bite down and take a piece of flesh, would not put the fear of consequence into people.

In the end, with Han Linfeng managing the Ministry of Finance officials, he managed to squeeze a round of contributions from these noble families. The funeral thus acquired the necessary funds and could be conducted with proper dignity.

The scholars and low-ranking officials from modest backgrounds had stayed entirely out of the affair from beginning to end — but they had also seen plainly that the current Emperor, and the Crown Prince in particular, were genuinely formidable operators, and that when it came to dealing with ministers who traded on age and seniority, they had tricks in endless supply.

Walking away from court that day, Li Guitian remarked to his son that after so many years in official service, he was finally beginning to see some light in the sky. His only worry was whether the new Emperor, working alone, would eventually antagonize the noble families so thoroughly that the path of reform might become impossible to sustain in the future.

* * *

As Li Guitian had feared, the voices of noble family opposition to the new Emperor had been rising like wave upon wave.

The noble families had founded countless academies, and many young scholars were themselves of noble birth, wielding influence over public opinion. At this time, a great many academy discussions were devoted to debating whether the new policies were undermining the foundations of the state.

But the incident that pushed the tide of opposition to its highest point yet was an unexpected event — one that happened to occur in Fengzhou, where Su Guiyan had just taken up his new post.

Because the relatives of Empress Zong had not yet received any titles or appointments, Su Luoyun had advised Han Linfeng to hold off for the time being and not rush to enfeoff her own family members.

Han Linfeng had only promoted Su Guiyan in accordance with his actual qualifications, transferring him to the position of Prefectural Governor of Fengzhou, which lay closer to the capital.

After all, as a brother-in-law, one naturally wished to give one’s younger brother-in-law some practical experience. From county sub-magistrate to prefectural governor — one step at a time, building the seasoning needed for greater responsibilities in the future.

Fengzhou was home to a great many academies and was known as a place that produced talented men from noble families. It was in Fengzhou that the Imperial Tutor Wang Chengjiu, tutor to two successive emperors, had spent years of hard study in his youth. After his death, in accordance with his own wishes, he had been buried on the rear hill of the very academy where he had once studied and farmed.

On that rear hill now stood what was called the Imperial Tutor’s Mausoleum, filled with stone epitaphs and inscriptions from distinguished figures across many fields — a place regarded as almost sacred ground.

Then the land equalization reforms were set in motion. A number of displaced settlers, searching for land to cultivate, had inadvertently “encroached” upon the mausoleum grounds of the Imperial Tutor Wang Chengjiu — and from this, an unexpected incident arose.

This Wang Chengjiu, as Imperial Tutor to two successive emperors, had also been the founding mentor of the late Emperor Shengde. He had enjoyed great imperial favor in life and left behind a fine posthumous reputation. Who in all of Great Wei did not know his name?

He was also a member of the Changxi Wang family. Though the Wang family’s influence had been badly diminished because of Empress Wang’s scheming — with many of their members arrested — a hundred-year-old noble clan is a great tree with many branches, and quite a few of its offshoots and collateral lines had been left unaffected.

In truth, the displaced settlers clearing wasteland for cultivation were actually separated from the Imperial Tutor’s mausoleum by a stream — they had not been digging on the mausoleum grounds themselves. In former times, the local residents had all known that those grounds belonged to the Imperial Tutor’s tomb, and no one had dared to cultivate nearby and risk offending the local Wang family.

But after the land equalization reforms, unclaimed land was being seized and farmed by anyone who got there first. The settlers who had come to open the land were refugees from elsewhere, ignorant of local customs, and had inadvertently committed what the locals regarded as an offense.

They had not actually encroached on Wang family land — but the Wang family’s kinsmen took the view that a crowd of ragged, destitute settlers digging and plowing anywhere near the site was an eyesore and an affront. They insisted, with absolute certainty, that these settlers were attacking the ancestral spirit and vital energy of the Wang family’s roots.

Following the affair of Empress Wang, the Wang family’s fortunes had declined considerably — but a dead camel is still larger than a horse, and they remained a clan of considerable prestige. In particular, the lineage of the Imperial Tutor had used the great man’s reputation as its foundation to open a considerable number of academies in the region, gathering many students. A great many of the current court’s scholar-officials of independent mind had once been Wang family students, and the family accordingly felt it had considerable standing to speak from.

Simply driving the settlers away would have been one thing. But then, just a few days after the initial confrontation, the Imperial Tutor Wang Chengjiu’s grave marker was found toppled — and numerous inscribed stone tablets bearing the commemorative writings of eminent figures had been smashed to fragments beyond repair. The Imperial Tutor’s descendants beat their chests and wept, condemning the moral decay of the age and the utter collapse of civilized order.

The Wang family members insisted it was the settlers taking revenge, and brought people into the village to make arrests. The settlers fought back, and in the scuffle, a distant Wang family relation who had come to manage affairs was accidentally struck and injured. The matter escalated further: the Wang family, refusing to let it go, had their private guards seize people and bring charges before the authorities.

But the settlers, one and all, tearfully insisted they had never done anything as wicked as toppling a grave marker. They had no idea how the marker had come to be knocked down.

As for the Wang family’s hired enforcers — they had beaten and injured a number of hardworking farmers. Each of those men was the labor of his household; if they were laid up, an entire family of young and old had nothing to live on.

And so this case fell to Su Guiyan as the very first matter to cross his desk after taking up his post.

He had never imagined that so soon after being transferred to his new position, he would find himself confronted with such a thorny lawsuit.

Though he knew perfectly well that if he punished the refugee settlers, appeased the fury of the Imperial Tutor’s descendants, and put an end to the matter — the case would be closed.

But looking at the gaunt, sallow-faced farmers kneeling before him, Su Guiyan had no desire to render a muddled verdict.

So he conducted careful inquiries, interviewed witnesses, and then opened a formal hearing on the case.

According to the surveyed boundary markers, the land the settlers had been cultivating was not Wang family private property to begin with.

As for the destruction of the mausoleum — on the night in question, all the settlers had been at home. Moreover, the mausoleum had a dedicated caretaker on duty at all times; that the grave marker had been toppled with such violence without anyone noticing was itself suspicious.

Since there was no evidence to prove the settlers had desecrated the tomb, they could not be convicted of grave-desecration on speculation alone. In the end, Su Guiyan ordered the villagers released.

This stirred up a hornet’s nest.

The Imperial Tutor’s descendants and heirs were furious. They insisted that the newly appointed Prefectural Governor was using his status as the Crown Princess’s younger brother to shield the settlers who had humiliated the Wang family — the tutors of two imperial generations.

Then, in the days following the Grand Emperor’s burial, the Imperial Tutor’s heirs and students dressed in mourning white, wailing loudly, came before the Emperor to beg that the settlers who had disgraced the noble family be severely punished — along with the Prefectural Governor Su Guiyan, who had shielded those lawless troublemakers.

Among the assembled veteran ministers, a great many were former students of that Imperial Tutor. Upon hearing that their teacher’s grave marker had been toppled, they were consumed with shame and indignation. Without concerning themselves with the facts of the matter, they joined the chorus demanding severe punishment for the lawless settlers — and for the derelict Governor Su.

After all, the Imperial Tutor had also been the teacher of the late Emperor Shengde, and the Emperor Han Yi was of the direct imperial lineage of Emperor Shengde. If the Emperor could not protect the honor of his ancestors’ teacher, how deeply would that wound the hearts of scholars throughout the realm?

The Wang family wept and clamored without cease. But the clear-eyed observers in the court all understood that these people had been stirred up by someone operating behind the scenes to serve as kindling.

It appeared the Wang family had also figured out that while the new Emperor was willing to play rough, he was not a tyrant given to cruelty. After all, since Great Wei’s founding, however ministers might fall into disgrace, there had never been a precedent of “putting scholars to death and silencing remonstrance.”

Moreover, the name of the Imperial Tutor they had brought into the throne room carried too much weight for the Emperor to dismiss carelessly. The realm of Great Wei bore the surname Han, and this new Emperor, a newcomer who had arrived from a provincial branch, could not afford to be seen as rendering unfair judgment — for that would be to make an enemy of scholars across the entire empire.

Given that, as long as they argued from a position of principle and reason, they were not afraid to make a scene. Even a cruel and foolish emperor would not cut off their heads for it — and so their actions grew increasingly brazen.

Indeed, as the matter grew louder and louder, academies founded by noble families all across the region were debating it. Many young scholars were filled with righteous indignation, declaring that the degradation of the Imperial Tutor’s name at the hands of ignorant lowborn commoners was a harbinger of heaven’s downfall — and a sign that a Daji and a Zhou of Shang had appeared.

It was quite clear that the “Daji” in question was not referring to any consort in the imperial harem, but rather to the Crown Princess in the Eastern Palace.

What virtue could a woman of merchant origins possibly possess? By allowing her own brother to offend the Imperial Tutor, she had made herself the enemy of every scholar in the realm.

For a time, noble families such as the Lu Guo Gong’s all watched from the sidelines with detached curiosity, waiting to see how the Emperor would handle this.

In truth, if one wanted to quiet the outcry at court and in the country, it was simple enough: severely punish those who had enabled the settlers, and the matter would be resolved.

But this case involved the Crown Princess’s own younger brother. If the Emperor imposed severe punishment on the Prefectural Governor, he would obviously be stripping dignity from the Crown Prince and his wife, and undermining the Crown Prince’s standing.

Yet if he did not punish severely, then in the eyes of the scholars, the Emperor and the Crown Prince were treating the new policies as a license for displaced settlers to run wild and act with impunity.

Han Yi sat on the dragon throne and knew perfectly well that these people were deliberately making things difficult. His brow furrowed deeply.

The wrangling in the hall continued for two full days, and throughout it all, the Emperor continued to play the fool and said nothing.

Then on the third day, before the assembled ministers had even finished setting up their framework for roasting the Emperor alive — the Crown Princess appeared in the great hall, simply dressed in plain white, without powder or rouge.

There she was: a slender beauty with a swollen belly, her hair loose down her back, carrying a bundle of thorned bramble branches, kneeling in the hall. She spoke immediately to accept blame before the Emperor, saying she was willing to take punishment in her brother’s stead, and begged the Emperor to temporarily suspend her brother’s official duties. She also pledged her own funds to repair the Imperial Tutor’s mausoleum.

When she humbled herself in this way, bearing thorns and bearing guilt, even the most aggressive and relentless ministers could find no further grounds for attack.

Su Luoyun’s sudden appearance in the great hall was plainly beyond the Crown Prince Han Linfeng’s expectations. He stared at his Crown Princess with an expression of shock mingled with heartache, and in a few quick strides moved to help her to her feet.

But she kept her head bowed and refused to rise, remaining rigidly kneeling.

Han Linfeng understood that by appearing of her own accord in plain white, hair unbound, bearing bramble branches in her brother’s place, she had helped both the Emperor and himself out of a corner. Yet seeing her kneel in the great hall with her swollen belly, he was ready to breathe fire.

Even so, the Wang family felt that a humiliation of this magnitude — a scandal that had besmirched the Imperial Tutor’s name — was being dismissed far too ignominiously simply because a woman had knelt down and wept. It stuck in their craws.

So they addressed the Emperor directly, asking whether it was the practice that an official who broke the law need only have his womenfolk kneel and confess in his place to be spared all punishment.

Su Luoyun listened to the Wang family’s indignant words without the slightest hurry or alarm, and replied: “This subject came today to accept punishment on behalf of her brother because she is ashamed that he lacks wisdom in human affairs and failed to act with appropriate flexibility. It was not my intention to seek a reduction or waiver of any charges of dereliction of duty. Since this matter has grown so large, this subject humbly beseeches the Emperor to clarify the truth of the affair and send investigators to determine whether the settlers’ cultivated land actually encroaches on the Imperial Tutor’s mausoleum grounds. The laws of Great Wei are not changed because a woman kneels — nor are they altered because someone raises their voice and makes a commotion.”

These words were measured and principled, neither servile nor overbearing.

Though Su Luoyun had already lowered herself sufficiently, there were still members of the Wang family who, not knowing when to stop, glared and demanded to know what she meant by asking the Emperor to send investigators. Was she accusing them of lying?

Before Su Luoyun could respond, Han Linfeng spoke in a cold voice: “I have read the Imperial Tutor’s own memoir, in which he counseled his descendants that he had lived a life of integrity, had served as conscientious teacher to two emperors, and yet had never presumed to regard himself as an Imperial Tutor by title. He hoped his descendants would devote themselves to scholarship, uphold the noble family’s reputation for purity, and not rest complacently on the achievements their ancestors had built. He longed for the days of his youth, when he had studied and farmed beside the academy, and so he requested burial on the rear hill behind the academy. He also specified that his funeral arrangements were to be simple: although his official rank was first grade and his peerage entitled him to a burial mound of one hundred square paces by regulation, Wang the Elder said that after death one need not be particular about the size of one’s dwelling, nor should one occupy excessive amounts of farmland — and so a seventh-grade burial of twenty square paces would be more than sufficient.”

Han Linfeng paused here, then continued: “I have already reviewed the reports submitted by the local officials. The distance between the Imperial Tutor’s mausoleum and the disputed streamside farmland is a full ten mu. Yet the Wang family claims these commoners have encroached upon the Imperial Tutor’s mausoleum — which means that over these past several decades, the Wang family has expanded the mausoleum grounds by more than six times its original size. Were the Emperor to truly dispatch investigators to survey the land, it would almost certainly far exceed the one-hundred-square-pace standard permitted for the rank of Duke or Marquis. The Imperial Tutor lived a life of impeccable integrity and stands as a model of Great Wei’s finest — yet what has been passed down to the present generation? No one heeds the sage’s dying words, while those who exploit his name for gain and personal glory appear in endless succession. The toppled grave marker — was it truly someone’s deliberate act? I suspect that among the Imperial Tutor’s descendants, whatever has been allowed to creep in would be enough to make the sage ancestor leap from his tomb in fury.”

These words sent the Wang family members red-faced and choking with rage.

Han Linfeng had used the Imperial Tutor’s own memoir to refute them — and there was little the Wang family could say in response. For these were plain, documented facts, widely known throughout Great Wei.

And that the Wang descendants had continually expanded and embellished the mausoleum over the years in order to burnish the Imperial Tutor’s prestige was also entirely true.

This had, of course, been tacitly permitted by the now-deceased Grand Emperor. After all, the Grand Emperor himself had been obsessed with constructing grand burial sites, and had felt that a man of the Imperial Tutor’s stature being buried in such a modest fashion was beneath what an emperor who cherished the wise and worthy should allow. Having the descendants expand and improve the grounds was simply a way to display imperial reverence for the sage.

Now that Han Linfeng had seized on the Wang family’s violation of burial regulations, their position was indefensible.