In the middle and late period of a dynasty where the civil servants were the strongest and the military officers were the most dangerous, no one was the real mastermind - it was the system that drove everything.
Civil servants use their pens as swords to quietly consolidate power by amending regulations and controlling procedures.
A military commander sees blood when holding a sword. The higher his military exploits, the more he is jealous of. Loyalty becomes a life-threatening talisman.
The imperial power is at the top, but it is trapped in the check and balance dilemma of its own design, watching power flow into the gray area.
Liu Chengxuan, a poor censor, was determined to save the country through the system, but in the process of revising the "Regulations on Supervision of the Military", he changed from an idealist to a "necessary evil".
For the famous border general Han Wu, what he gained after ten years of bloody battle was not rewards, but transfers, suspicions and a certain death situation - if you don't rebel, you will die.
When a civil servant's pen meets a military general's sword, when loyalty becomes a luxury and betrayal becomes rationality, everyone will reach an inevitable end under the gears of the system.
This is not a battle between good and evil, but a dead game of power that no one can win.
Read "Seeking Power and Usurping the Throne under Imperial Power" to see how the system kills people, how ideals decay, and how everyone becomes what they hate most.
