The Enemy Is at the Gates, and You Want Me to Hand Over the Young Emperor?

You were once a destitute scholar from a poor family. The late emperor recognized your talent and trusted you without question for more than a decade. Overcoming fierce opposition, he promoted you to third-rank Vice Minister of War and commander of the Capital Camps. He betrothed his most beloved little princess to you and treated you like his own son.

Then the late emperor died suddenly, entrusting the young emperor to your care. At this moment, court ministers conspired with frontier commanders to open the city gates and let the foreign tribes into the pass. Three hundred thousand soldiers now besiege the capital. Every official and scholar in court advocates surrender, while military officers and nobles secretly rally support and hearts waver. The only force you can command in the capital is the ten thousand soldiers of the Capital Camps.

Just then, the foreign tribes outside the city send an envoy with an oath: if you open the gates and hand over the young emperor, they will guarantee your wealth, rank, and power remain untouched.

You raised the little emperor yourself, and he has been close to you since childhood. After the late emperor died, he trusted you even more, enfeoffed you as a marquis, and honored you as an uncle.

Now the little emperor, dressed in mourning white, kneels at your feet with the imperial jade seal in his hands, clinging to your leg and weeping. The tide has turned, and the court can do nothing to save the situation. He doesn't blame you. He tells you to trade him for a life of wealth and honor, asking only that, for old times' sake, you set fire to the imperial harem so the late emperor won't be disgraced!

Now you look at the little emperor kneeling at your feet and the foreign envoy beside you.

What will you choose?