>>134495>>134494Jubilosa gives her own commentary:
"Well, I don't see what is so wrong with that..."
She trails off at the end, aware that her words are not desired, and she becomes quiet. Khoi doesn't act like she heard Jubilosa. But she does respond to Silver's question:
"You must understand, the Khoe dynasty would face a difficult task even without the rebels, and without the Storm King. Ngua Nam would face change regardless, and to stand strong as King in these times would be like to stand strong in the middle of river. You are more likely to be swept away with the current. The Khoe dynasty started two centuries ago, when a general named Cháy Rừng overthrew the last ruler of the Yín Mén dynasty, a northern Kirin bloodline, and restored Ngua Nam to rule by the native Kylan.
Áo Gió Khoe, the old King, was very well versed in the teachings embodied in the Great Vehicle and ruled Ngua Nam in peace for twenty-five years. But he tired of politics and ostentation, and decided to seek awakening in a small farm on a hill in the country. He visits the temples and the places of the poor to help out sometimes. He retired a year before the Storm King came. Some say he stepped down to leave the throne to his son, so he would not be the last king of Ngua Nam, the one to lose it all.”
She pauses, and closes her eyes as she hakes her head
“But that is not true at all. He helps his son when the country needs it, but stays away from power otherwise. I admire him…
His son is Prince Chắn Sóng Khoe. They is call him ‘Prince’ because of his young age and his still living father, who often makes the decisions instead of Chắn Sóng. But he is King now, and has been much of his life. I think he wants to be something more than a ‘king,’ a highest noble. He wants to be a sort of father of the nation, a ruler who does not simply rule by law but cultivates the virtue of his people. This philosophy is common in the Kirin Empire, but he may have been inspired by your . But he is more likely to be the Last King than to be a father of the nation. He appeared weak when the Storm King came, and his personality is sometimes overshadowed by his ministers. His passion, I think, is in reforming the education system, to add more state-owned schools alongside the village and religious schools. I went to one of these for a couple years. He lacks his fathers wisdom, but he has the energy and idealism of youth. What one lacks, the other has.
The Foreign Minister is Hěnduō Fāngfǎ. He is not Kylan but is the foal of Imperial merchants. The elder king could see his talent and positioned him as ambassador to the Empire. He proved skilled at navigating the complex relationships between nations, and so was made Foreign Minister, and in this role has served both kings. His special project is trade. He hopes to attract foreign investors, and to open new markets for exports. But he’s spent most of his tenure dealing with the wars. It was he more than anyone who kept the Storm King’s forces at bay and stopped them from despoiling the country. But it was likely he who invited the subversive foreign advisers, a failure that casts a shadow over his whole tenure. Neither the foreign mining corporations he has brought, nor the new military backers make him especially popular in the country. But I remember the siege of Cue Song. I do not think the rebels could have been defeated were it not for the foreign bought planes bombing the rebel artillery. His craftiness is invaluable to the nation.
Gió Nóng is the head of the Army and the Minister of War. Like Hěnduō he is not Kylan, but he is not northern Kirin either, but is of a minority tribe of the western mountains and follows an Equestrian Celestialist religion. Born to a landowning family, his family’s plantation has been destroyed and its remains taken twice, by both the Storm King and the rebels. With no where else to go, he spends day and night organizing the resistance against the partisans. He is not a full supporter of the Monarchy, admittedly a dangerous trait for his position, and instead calls himself a ‘Nationalist’ and an ‘Anti-Communist.’ Yet he is valuable because, though does not quite equal Bright Will’s tactical genius, he has a firm understanding of the provincial rulers, their lands and needs, and is a skilled staffer. He is less popular with the peasantry than he is with the landowners, less popular even than Hěnduō. What he considers a ‘modernizing national service’ is seen by some as just a peasant levy. But I was impressed into the national service myself. And I know that Cue Song did not fall, for all the effort of the enemy. And I know that no major city has fallen since he became Chief of the Army"