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Kong Rong sighed miserably and said, “You put your case well. But I will
be watching and listening carefully when we are at court, looking for signs of
the truth, whatever that may be. Cao Cao might not be the worst villain of the
age, but he is a villain nonetheless, and I fear for the Han while is so
powerful and there are no good men with the might to oppose him, only selfish
ones.”
“We will protect the Han,” Wang Lang replied. “So long as men like us
continue to support the Han, it will never die.”
“...Yes,” Kong Rong agreed.
“And now I must go!” Wang Lang chuckled as he got to his feet. “I must
prepare for the meeting, as must you.”
Kong Rong got to his feet, clasped his hands together and bowed humbly;
Wang Lang reciprocated the gesture and departed.
*************
The Han Imperial court was structured in much the same way as it had
been for decades; the great assemblies were, like the infrastructure, largely
unchanging. Bearded men filed into the grand hall by the dozens to kneel on the
floor in front of the gilded imperial throne; they wore matching brown robes
and tough black caps to cover their hair, and their white-socked feet made
little noise as they shuffled to places that were predetermined by rank. Shoes
were forbidden, as were weapons; only the guards, who were typically eunuchs,
could carry arms with the purpose of defending their sovereign.
The Xuchang court was
smaller than the ‘true’ courts of the western capital Chang’an, where the Han
Dynasty was born, or the eastern capital Luoyang, where it was reborn following
Wang Mang’s usurpation of the mandate and founding of his own short-lived
dynasty over a hundred years earlier; Cao Cao had made the best palace that his
resources could fund, but everyone knew that there would need to be a return to
Luoyang - which was still being reconstructed - at some point. Some suggested a
return to Chang’an now that the threat of Dong Zhuo’s minions, such as Li Jue
and Guo Si, had been ended once and for all, but a greater threat existed in
the form of the Qiang tribes and disaffected rebel militias, so the idea was
quickly dismissed. Xuchang was, as Emperor Xian had once remarked, ‘a suitable
temporary solution to the crisis’, and it would have to remain so at least
until one nearby threat to Luoyang’s safety - Yuan Shao’s vast army in
neighbouring Ji Province - was dealt with.