In the fifth year of the Fu Lu era of Great Zhao, by order of Emperor Xuanwu, I was tasked with erecting a memorial stele and writing the biography of the late Grand Tutor Gu Lianying.
Grand Tutor Gu's life was mired in controversy. The title of "turncoat minister" was practically his personal badge of honor. A leading scholar among the remnants of the Jing Dynasty, he surrendered to Great Zhao and served it, grinding the pride of the late-era scholar-officials into the dust. At the same time, because he was not of our people, he was greatly feared and suppressed by the imperial clan of Great Zhao. I believe this did considerable damage to his body and mind. People of the time considered it a fitting punishment.
To write this biography, I gathered various unofficial histories, miscellaneous records, and scholars' notes, and interviewed several people who had known Gu during his life. That was when I encountered a very strange problem: different people often held opposing, even diametrically opposite, opinions about the very same things Gu had done. I could no longer tell whether he had been a loyal imperial tutor or a shield for the rebels who sought to restore Jing.
Even Emperor Xuanwu himself had no answer.
It must be said that the teacher-student relationship between Grand Tutor Gu and Emperor Xuanwu became a turning point in both their lives. Even the emperor himself could not say for certain whether Gu had resented him during that winter when Gu was forced into office and made tutor to the crown prince. At the time, this illustrious and ambitious ruler was still Tuoba Zhen, a crown prince walking on thin ice under the system of "the heir lives, the mother dies."
It was the twelfth month of the third year of the Ruihe era. Emperor Xuanwu was fourteen, and Gu was twenty-one.
Warnings:
One top with two bottoms.
The plot's melodrama is on par with the sequel to The Imperial Heir.
A story of a conquered people, a whole basin of melodrama, and all the delicious angst. The plot serves the romance.
Theme: The times and fate
Where Are the Young Nobles?
An Abnormal Person
The Strange Tales of White Crane Mountain
The Sun Society Scandal [Interstellar]
The Dawn Tribunal [Interstellar]
The Deer King Jataka Painting
The Death of the Buddha Mother
The Chronicle of Emperor Ai
A Sequel to the Emperor's Legacy
Tales of the Late Emperor