“What the longwinded old fart means,” interrupts Qi, “is that everyone has their own path and we won't judge them outright without looking at the circumstances. I mean, take a look at me. I’m a beggar, but before this I was a prince. You have read about the civil war thirty years ago, right? It was before your time, but that war brought the current Emperor to power.” It is not spoken of much nowadays, as the Emperor had been keen to make his rule appear more legitimate by suppressing talk of him having seized power from his siblings by force, but you know of the war. You nod.
“Lots of my brothers died back then. I was a minor prince, never in contention for the throne, but I saw enough to walk away from it all. Now, the point I’m trying to make is, in the pugilistic world we should never try to judge a book by its cover, whether we are orthodox or unorthodox. There are always factors to consider.”
...
This boiled over a mere three years after the Tujue had been driven off, when Emperor Gaosheng died suddenly of a mysterious illness. His designated heir, Crown Prince Li Xiude, did not survive to take the throne as he passed from a dagger in his back mere hours after receiving news of his father’s death. From Gaosheng’s twenty six surviving sons, three major factions emerged.
The Second Prince Li Wang led the largest faction, with eight brothers at his back. After the Crown Prince, he was said to be the most excellent of the princes, with both strength and smarts.
The Eleventh Prince Li Suguang, had influence over six other brothers. He was an ambitious and powerful man who had made his name in the Tujue war.
The Sixth Prince Li Zhou, led five of his brothers in vying for the throne. Though his group was the smallest, he was said to be a charismatic speaker and kind leader.
The various generals, military prefects, and martial arts sects threw their support behind each of the factions thanks to the work the various princes had done behind the scenes. This resulted in open war.
As the conflict progressed, the Imperial princes began dying from blades that they saw coming, those that they did not see coming, and those that they should have seen coming. Surprisingly, the Eleventh Prince was one of the first, dying in an ambush with two of his brothers.
In the end, however, the winner was an unexpected contender. The Twenty-Seventh Prince, Li Ming. In the midst of the conflict, he had managed to secure support from his siblings in all three factions. The rival princes had their feet swept out from under them. Li Ming was ruthless and quick in his actions. Cornering his siblings within a month from the time he made his move, he finally ended the civil war by capturing and beheading fifteen princes, including the Second and the Sixth, when they approached him to negotiate peace.
The next day, he crowned himself Emperor Taisheng.
...
Nearly thirty years ago, according to an old-timer, two of his friends went missing in the tunnels. Then they found a severed hand on the ground, while searching. But they never found the rest of the bodies. The old-timer says he's sure they were eaten.
According to the same old-timer, another agent disappeared about twenty years ago, but the superiors wrote him off as being AWOL and did not bother to order a search.
Around seventeen years ago they sealed off part of the tunnels because of cave-in dangers, but the old-timer claims it was actually because of the man-eater. Another old-timer agrees with him on this.
Some agents also claim they occasionally hear rattling chains in the dark while travelling through the tunnels.
