“Yellow Sky”: Crisis for the Han Dynasty sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne

In another part of China, a disinherited relative of Emperor Ling was giving a powerless voice to his own ambitions for the future.
“One day, I will ride in a carriage like that!”
A group of boys were stood around a lone tree in a small village in the north of China. Their ‘leader’ - a boy of average height with long earlobes and a confident demeanour - gestured toward the tree, which was hunched over and resembled a canopy. The shadows, combined with the healthy imagination of children, allowed the youths to believe that this tree was remarkably similar in appearance to the carriage that carried the emperor around when he left the palace. That carriage was topped with a yellow canopy, which was a sign of his majesty. None but the emperor could travel in a similar carriage or wear yellow on or above their head; such was the significance of the imperial transportation.
“You reckon so, uh, Bei…?” a second boy heckled.
Liu Bei - the youth that had made the grand proclamation - stood by his words and said, “I do, I do! I’m a prince, and one day, I could be emperor, and ride around all day in a grand carriage!”
“Yeah, sure,” another boy scoffed. “You gonna make a carriage out of straw…?”
Liu Bei was dressed in simple clothing; he was not a peasant, but he was far from pampered. He would have been a prince, had an ancestor not offended the emperor of the day and been disinherited, along with their progeny. Instead, Liu Bei worked as a weaver of straw mats and sandals alongside his mother, his father having died and left them without wealth or income. But his situation did not stop him dreaming and hoping.
“I will be emperor; you’ll see!” Liu Bei said surely.
“You always say that!” a third boy heckled.
“But I will! I will be emperor!” Liu Bei shouted defiantly.
At a distance, a man watched Liu Bei and his friends, and smiled. One day, that man - a wealthy relative of Liu Bei - would have the ambitious young man installed into a private school and unwittingly give him the first foothold that he needed to make his lofty childhood dreams a reality.

Another year passed. Consort Song was made Empress, and the young emperor started to fill the empty harem with women so that he might begin to grow his family as was required. The previous Dowager, Lady Dou, continued to live under permanent watch. Lady Dou was a woman with no official role, no family since the destruction of her clan, and no allies of her own. In addition, the eunuchs that she had contemplated slaughtering now held all of her previous power and greatly resented her. However, she still had supporters due to her links to the martyred Dou Wu and Chen Fan, and the eunuchs knew this.

Yet another year passed: it had been four years since the ascension of Emperor Ling and the destruction of the Dou family. Lady Dou, the former Empress Dowager, suddenly died while still under house arrest: some suspected foul play, but it was expected that none would dare voice it. However, that expectation was proven to be false, and as a result, a matter that was already serious enough was made far worse.

“I’ve done nothing!” a man sobbed as his eunuch interrogator, Jian Shuo, paced back and forth in front of him.
“But you might know who did do ‘something’, I hear,” the eunuch suggested.
“I told you, they heard me wrong!” the man protested. “I never saw who wrote it, I just said that whoever it was would pay for it, that’s all I said!”
“…And they will,” Jian Shuo replied as he left the prisoner in his dingy cell and walked toward Cao Jie and Wang Fu, who were waiting near the cell block entrance.

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