Well, looking at the initial circumstances fallout:
1) Opening spar with Meizhen. According to Meizhen she'd had decided to squat in the ruins of her home to heal up because she expected to be jumped by Kang(who was already known to support Liling unless you were politically blind) the moment she leaves the girls' section, while Liling didn't have to worry because she had Kang waiting outside. She was right. This leads to Meizhen losing out on a week or two of exploration while she works on recovery using her own medicine with no healer.
1.1) In the event that Meizhen goes out to seek a healer, Kang's minions would ambush her with a purchased formation trap field right outside the girls' zone, with the expectation that even the injured and exhausted Meizhen would win, but either weaken herself too much or Cui would go overboard and the Elders step in to timeout her. Then Kang will show up and Meizhen isn't going to beat him AND the remaining minions. This would happen too quickly for support to arrive.
1.2) Outcome of this plot is that Meizhen would spend the first month of Thunderdome hiding in a cave somewhere meditating to recover, with choice pieces of her gear looted and used to fund Kang if she gambles on breaking out. Kang, by showing strength would gather more minions for himself and Liling. Liling, with Meizhen out of the way, would have free rein to explore the mountain without fear of attack.
Ling Qi cocked this up by dragging things out JUST long enough for Cai to come to Meizhen's rescue.
Cai cocked this up by not behaving to Liling's expectations, where it'd be logical for her to join in on the Bai-kicking and looting, or at least ignore it.
2) The First Council Meeting would have fell through. Bai Meizhen after her defeat would have gone full paranoid hermit and ignored the call for a meeting, fearing another trap. Which leaves the meeting as Cai(Duke) vs Sun(Duke) + Kang(Count), with Golden Fields(Various sub-ducal) Ji Rong(Commoner) and whatshisname(Count) standing neutral.
Ling Qi cocked this up by foiling Plot 1, and Cai cocked this up by winning the gratitude of Meizhen with her rescue, as two Dukes on the same side leaves Sun without much recourse.
3) Renshu sets about ostracizing talented commoners(identified from the class performances) from the nobility, provoking retaliation upon them and then Yan Sempai will offer them a contract to get out of their resource hole. A Kyubey hat may or may not be involved.
3.1) If theres no government order then it'd be straight up being ganged up on.
3.2) If theres a government order the high nobles probably won't even check to see if the commoners actually did it due to preset prejudices.
Ling Qi cocked this up by somehow befriending a high noble(more if you include ) within a month, which meant that Cai was required to at least give a cursory investigation, which means the plot fell through for her.
Liling cocked this up by intercepting and recruiting Ji Rong before Renshu could get him..
4) Sun Liling should have won the rebellion.
4.1) Meizhen should be doing the full hermit thing somewhere on the mountain and only noticed when the fighting started. If she wasn't, Kang is there and ready to pin her down from doing jack shit.
4.2) Golden Fields would have stayed out of the fight. They actually tried to.
4.3) Ji Rong was recruited by Liling.
4.4) Ling Qi should have been against Cai after Renshu's plot.
4.5) Nothing there was ready for Sunflower Field
4.6) Which means its a facepunch duel between Liling and Renxiang, which she only needs to fight to a draw to win
Ling Qi cocked 4.1 up by butterflying Plot 1, which meant that Meizhen was obligated to come to Renxiang's aid. Still, that just means Kang isn't free to act due to tarpitting Meizhen.
Ling Qi cocked 4.2 up by befriending Xiulan(Liling:"Where the fuck does she find the time?!"), dragging Xiulan into the fight, which meant that the rest of Golden Fields was dragged into the fight because one of theirs was in trouble. This also meant that Golden Fields became de-facto Cai supporters.
Due to Plot 3 going wrong, Ling Qi is there to cock up 4.5, as it turns out the Sunflower Field was countered by FVM just barely long enough that she didn't win anything before the Elders showed up.
5) Sun Liling should have won the second rebellion, she had the initiative, she had the help of the senior students and everything was wrecked.
Well...she did win it actually, all Ling Qi did was limit the damage from ruinous to painful by sweeping up all the scattered forces into one band.
6) Whatever Yan Renshu was up to. This isn't actually important, except for an infusion of resources via the loot to recover from 5.
Ling Qi: "I loot everything not nailed down. Also that book is nailed down but that won't stop me."
7) Sun Liling should have at least gotten a draw on the fortress game. She had a fortified position, specialized talismans to counter all known strategies of the Cai faction, specialist trick arrows and all that. If Cai didn't engage her she'd just sit there eroding their legitimacy, if Cai DID engage her she'd make the fighting so costly that Cai's order could well collapse from bankruptcy in paying the healing costs of everyone.
7.1) She decided to complicate a good thing by taking away most of her heavy hitters to set up a two pronged ambush for Ling Qi. She didn't need to guard the last approach because its monster filled mountains more dangerous to Ling Qi than to her...not.
Sun Liling left the defensible, prepared position with everyone she'd need to hold that position to hunt Bugs Bunny over the mountain and keep going even though it wasn't working, allowing the position to be torn apart. We honestly can't credit this fuckup to Ling Qi. It's all on Liling.
