Evil Gathering Around Innocent Souls

That morning, when Emika rose from her bed with a miserable headache, images of her sweet and joyous childhood popped up randomly in her mind.

Crawling out of bed, she opened her eyes to another morning she didn't want to see for her sorrow was intolerable.

Her head pillowed by night upon nightmares, she wished desperately for the tormented memories of her family's death to fade away, and the joyous ones also. At first those joyous memories came as a friend with a delicious picnic basket. But as days turned into weeks, this friend now came with a picnic basket full of rotten green foods with maggots. With every happy memory the after taste was bitter sweet. Yes, she came to the cruel realisation that no new happy memories could ever exist.

By day, she looked sadly on the puffy clouds, and, by night, she wept over the light of the silver lamp; her troubles always with her and comfort nowhere to be found.

She was just dragging herself on from day to day. And on that particularly morning, it weighed heavily on her the thought that she had failed on killing Shufeng and avenge her family. Furthermore, her failure to eradicate this evil man had endangered Taizong: How brazen the Second Prince was, attempting to murder the new Emperor on his coronation day!

Was this the reason why her feet had unconsciously led her to the abandoned palace? But what possessed her into stealing his jade hairpin, the hairpin of a murderer?

That morning, when she slid open the lattice shutters and a cool breeze blew in, her bare toes reflexively curled into the woollen rug. Summer had truly nodded her sleepy head and autumn would soon announced Winter, the icy queen soon to return.

Her eyes looked out at the clear sky. A congregation of white-laced clouds lit up the blue, moving freely as if they owed freedom itself. She envied the clouds, since they could cry their thunderous moods with a fierce and sonorous voice.

'Oh, why did my father, the descendant of our illustrious ancestors, had fallen into disgrace although he was blameless? A mother and a brother had to die also… ' Emika lamented within her crushed heart.

His victories of wars gained General Yun Hishoku immense power in the Imperial court, and his soldiers followed fervently his brave and uncontested leadership on the battlefields.

From the nobles to the commoners, all the citizens, children also, were lovers of their hero Hishoku, and composed popular songs and plays in his name to praise his victories.

Even Emperor Akishino, never once threatened by the popularity of the General, trusted him as an advisor with matters of the state, the throne and internal affairs of court. The Emperor once described the General as a mirror in which he could use to check his officials' wrongdoings.

In great contrast to the emperors before him, Emperor Akishino was receptive to criticism and words of advice, and tolerant of the General's criticisms as long as it benefited the Empire, his citizens and the imperial administration.

Hence, the feisty, upright General would often disagree with Chancellor Pyun, and it regularly infuriated the latter that the Emperor would most oftentimes trust the General's standpoint.

Accordingly, the General quelled internal conflicts by unifying the warring states within the Empire, and he was also a defender of righteousness and justice who purged corruption amidst ministers.

But unbeknownst to him, his popularity and the extents of his influence over the Emperor stirred up the jealousy and the anger of the Chancellor and certain ministers who kept looking suspiciously at the General from that day forward.

They feared he was too powerful, thence threatening their grip over the Emperor.

However their hostility grew to a dangerous level when General Hishoku repeatedly advised on matters that would eventually reveal their implication in bribery and extortion, bringing to light their deceptive practices against the Emperor. Therefore, the villainous ministers with hearts bent on killing schemed against General Hishoku.

At first, they decided to hire a suitable assassin, but it was predictable that the Emperor would move mountains and turn every stone to avenge the murder of his trusted adviser.

One cannot be too careless! Even the smallest crumb of evidence could lead to them so that the ministers formed a new plan.

Wouldn't it be more gratifying to witness the General's downfall instead of his martyrdom? Consequently, they plotted for General Hishoku to be remembered as the infamous betrayer who attempted to both seize power and murder the Emperor.

So, on the night of the Emperor's banquet, they lured the General into a trap and they carried to extreme lengths their risky scheme. As they set in motion the intricacies of their plan, how could they have anticipated that the Emperor would actually be murdered? 

Whatever happened that night, their actions unwittingly thwarted Empress Yū Miko's plan and triggered a series of events with irreversible consequences.

'Cause and effect' comes to mind. In general, an effect or an event has many causes, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of many other effects, which all lie in its future.

Which causes or single cause contributed to the unexpected death of Emperor Akishino?

An event that lay thirty-seven years in the past?

An old enemy out for retribution?

A mother's obsession for power?

A brother's rivalry?

A plot to seize power and enthrone a new emperor?

Someone's implication in the death of Consort Soyong about to be revealed?

A bout of violent and incontrollable anger?

The intolerable truth recorded in an imperial memorandum?

An imperial edict appointing the Emperor's successor?

When the Emperor's health started to progressively worsen, the formality of who was to inherit the throne became the biggest and most pressing issue in court. Within court it was a tacit understanding that the Emperor would endowed the First Prince, the heir apparent, with the title of Crown Prince. For it was custom for the first born to inherit the throne.

Several nights before the anniversary banquet of his coronation, when his health was at its worse, the Emperor ordered an express messenger to summon Chief Royal Secretary Cheng to his private chambers.

The Emperor issued a decree abolishing the right of primogeniture—the right of succession belonging to the firstborn child.

Then he wrote a secret edict finally naming a successor from his sons. Three copies were made. One was kept in the Emperor's desk, another in the Imperial Secretariat; the other sealed and hidden in a box at the back of the horizontal board hanging over the throne, and only the Emperor knew of its location.

The identity of his successor was to remain secret until the revealing of the edict on the day of the anniversary banquet of his coronation.

In addition to those two edicts, the Emperor issued a memorandum addressed to the Empress. It unveiled a terrible truth that the Chief Royal Secretary could not even attempt to fathom as he penned the Emperor's words.

A copy of the memorandum was also hidden with the copy of the edict of his succession inside the throne's secret compartment.

Cruelty of fate decided against the edict being read on the anniversary banquet.

Who could have predicted, in the midst of the merry feasting celebrating the thirty-seventh anniversary of the Emperor's coronation, that this very same night turned out to actually be the anniversary of his death.

After the Emperor's death the regent ministers opened the secret edicts, the one kept in the Emperor's desk and the one from the Imperial Secretariat, to verify with other courtiers the designated Prince to succeed to the throne.

It was a centuries-old tradition. The ceremonial occasion carried out in grand pompous display was just a formality since the law of Primogeniture already designated the first born.

And the edicts, both stamped with the Emperor's private jade seal—the Heirloom Seal Of The Realms—and with the Chief Royal Secretary's seal, named, as expected, First Prince Taizong at the successor.

And what about the third copy of the edict naming the heir, and the copy of the memorandum, that the Emperor deemed a precautionary measure to both hide within the throne chair? It remained hidden till this day.

Because of the villainous ministers' scheme, her chessboard lost an important pawn. Hence, Empress Yū Miko colluded with the villainous ministers, and to escape from the consequences of their actions it suited them fine to push the blame of the Emperor's death onto Second Prince Shufeng—and to create the scapegoat.

At the beginning she begrudged the ministers for the loss of General Hishoku, then, she reminded herself that throughout History many men were sacrificed by those who wished ascending to greater heights, so why cry over it?

The cunning and insightful Empress realised that this unplanned turn of event could improve her game. And she used that chance to gather the General's army under her control under the pretext to avenge their great hero, and so the hunt against Second Prince Shufeng began.

The story was simple yet elegant: Making General Yun Hishoku a martyr, and vilifying the Second Prince with a narrative of framing up the Empire's hero, of treason and patricide.

The pair of mother and son had gained the full support of the court, of the mightiest of armies and of the citizens across each and every land of the vast empire.