In the 580th year of the Great Xia calendar, the first year of Xuri, the Great Xia finally emerged from years of warfare. Under the leadership of Emperor Liu Feihe, it pacified the realm, established its capital at Yongcheng, and named the new state Xin. Emperor Liu Feihe governed with diligence, gave the people time to recover, waived years of taxes, encouraged commerce, expanded the civil service examinations, and curtailed the power of aristocratic clans by gathering the rights of the nobility into the throne's hands. Yet just ten years later, the emperor suddenly died, and ten-year-old Emperor Liu Xueyang ascended the throne. In the 588th year of the Great Xia calendar, Wen Sandao, a street thug in Yongcheng, saved the young emperor from assassins. Unaware of his identity, Wen promptly demanded a hundred taels in reward money. Wearing plain clothes embroidered with a dragon, the emperor was mistaken by the White Lotus Sect for the true Son of Heaven. This commoner, who couldn't even hold a memorial to the throne the right way around, was dragged into an earth-shattering conspiracy.
