So spirit minister dude does want to have an actual conversation with us, will be an enlightening one I suspect.
And yeah, it makes sense that having the Meng dude around would waylay some of their concerns, as well as having generally positive relations and interactions with the overall (non-treasonous) Meng. As stated above me, while it might not be their preferred way of going about things, it would still be better leaving things as they currently are. Or well, were, i guess.
Zhu Fan is an interesting guy, so far. There's a lot he's not saying, and some of his implications could be referring to more than one thing. He's also being gracious towards us, which is a positive sign, though doesn't preclude having demands or expectations he'd strongly want us to abide by.
His reply "They must" on capital interests observing Renxiang is telling. The Cai are... not established. Institutions want to see where the clan is going, and to influence that going according to their values, if possible. If we look at the earlier blurb about various parties petitioning for positioning their personnel and the Duchess decreeing otherwise, we can intuit that Shenhua is exerting quite a bit of pressure to isolate Renxiang from court pressures and influences. This is doing us a lot of favors, but it's also a double-edged blade. I bet if Shenhua wasn't doing it so transparently, this would be biting us in the reputational ass a lot harder.
This is one dynamic we'll have to keep a close eye on as further Cai scions mature. Shenhua might not stick to the same rearing style for her kids.
Zhu Fan goes on to mention Ling Qi ruffling feathers in the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs, but notes that it's positive we've got a proper expert, if one in a tradition that he doesn't favor. This is referring to the time Ling Qi basically did an improv placation session mid-botched-rite for a spirit. The local priestess was pretty scandalized by our off-script efforts. Engaging with spirits on a more person-to-person basis rather than through the arm's length formalities of exacting ritual is definitely a more Weilu approach, and the Ministry seems to disfavor it because of the greater potential for headache and the non-standardized responses it demands.
What's interesting to me, is Ling Qi is arguably doing much more disruptive things than that. There's her whole, zoomed out, scheme with Hanyi and Bao Qian with Meng Diu's sponsorship, which aims to influence the weather courts of an entire region, tied to a spirit who is formally a member of a Baron clan not even in the formal chain of authority of the affected regions. There's also the first contact with a foreign pantheon which is kind of our fault and junk.
Which I think is part of why the Minister wants to speak with us in greater detail, and why Diao Luwen's mention of inevitable chaos in the south prompted the invite. Like, the south of the province is a big mess as it is. Two count clans wiped out in the living memory of some, and who knows how many lower clans destroyed, leaving untold spirit pacts broken or unfulfilled. And that's without even getting into the direct damage to spiritual infrastructure caused by the Cloud Nomads' more concerted weather-based offensives. I'm sure Zhu Fan would love some order being restored to the border regions of the province. But our very initial forays into influencing the subject don't scream "normative".
So it's reasonable he's got concerns.
I'm curious how much of a protagonist he thinks we are, though. We've got two very strange spirit companions, one which is a natural Sovereign spirit lord, we're a recognized peer of a foreign order of priesthood by virtue of spirit mentor marking our soul, we managed our reckless improvisation without complication or error, we've made successful first contact and pact-building with frontier 4th realm spirits without seeming issue, and we're sponsored by three faces of the moon.
Any one thing would be one thing, but that's not our deal. The two weird spirits + triple-moon mentor probably especially sticks out to him, since I bet he can see which moons favor us at a glance. And it's just an odd confluence of spirit influence.
Even he was dressed in finery though, the regalia of the Minister of Works was not the flashiest thing, a high squared cap in the Ministries green, and an ornate wide-sleeved robe worked through with repeating geometric patterns.
Even he was dressed in finery though; the regalia of the Minister of Works was not the flashiest thing, a high squared cap in the Ministry's green and an ornate wide-sleeved robe worked through with repeating geometric patterns.
Even he was dressed in finery, though the regalia of the Minister of Works was not the flashiest thing, a high squared cap in the Ministry's green and an ornate wide-sleeved robe worked through with repeating geometric patterns.
[tweaked punctuation for grammar and flow; two versions depending on intended meaning. You should swap the semicolon for a period if you're iffy on semicolons. I just have an irrational love for them.
Fixed possessive on "Ministry's"]
What's interesting to me, is Ling Qi is arguably doing much more disruptive things than that. There's her whole, zoomed out, scheme with Hanyi and Bao Qian with Meng Diu's sponsorship, which aims to influence the weather courts of an entire region, tied to a spirit who is formally a member of a Baron clan not even in the formal chain of authority of the affected regions. There's also the first contact with a foreign pantheon which is kind of our fault and junk.
This is something I hope we can expand on in the future. It will secure the Ling Clan's future power base even more than the vassalage to the Cai Clan already does. We are essentially building the foundations of a Marquis Clan with that kind of wide-ranging control of the Southern Weather courts (especially if the Dragon King of the South dies) along with the solid center of power around our Precious taking control of a nexus point in the Wall (very important as we can divide the Cloud clans in the future as the purgation continues on).
"They must," Zhu Fan said, the exacting tap of the jade butt of his staff ringing in the quiet between verses of the celebratory melody playing. "You have… concerned some among the ministry, but it is good to know you have the tutelage of an expert to guide you. The old methods are… orthodox enough, in their way."
"Inefficient. Traditional methods emphasize the wrong factors. Human Life Quality and Carrying Capacity should be the highest goals of any settlement project."
Let's be fair here, the Empire treats people largely the same, and often worse (cloud nomads say hi).
Which in no way makes it better, just, more equally terrible.
Ling Qi couldn't speak to that. She was mostly involved with negotiating with spirits who were much more inhuman in their concerns. There was… probably some basis for concern regarding the balance of Yin and Yang in a relationship as important as that of a Duke or Duchess, from her slowly growing understanding of geomantic principles, but she found any argument that relied on Cai Shenhua having a deficit of yang energies to be at least a little dubious.
Per Yrs Shenhua is more Yang than Xuelong, the Celestial Dragon King of the South. Any geomancer who argues she is insufficiently Yang is out of their fucking mind.
Well, the precedent here clearly is that sufficiently Yang women get prescribed a girlfriend/ wife to balance them out and make sure they don't go coco.
And that's a joke, but it's also just what's happening.
In retrospect we're probably also seeing some unexpected benefit from when meng diu offered to support hanyi and we doubled down on the south rather than expand to the capital. It's not just that we're providing a solution to a genuine problem but ALSO that basically all of our efforts are where that genuine problem rather than butting in where (as he would see things) things are working perfectly fine already, thank you very much.
Oh, another interesting thing about the Zhu Fan interaction is Ling Qi mentioned her spirit relationships, plural, as being a reason for development strategy being what it has been, and Zhu Fan pivoted to acknowledging Zhengui specifically. He left out Hanyi. He might just think she's less relevant, but it could also be that our broader efforts with our are part of what he wants to discuss in more detail.
Also, on the matter of the difficulty and damage of renegotiating spirit pacts for the needs of greater density in the future, it's worth considering Zhengui's influence as a spirit lord in more than just terms of convenience. Philosophically, I think he trends towards that kind of disruption naturally. He's an avatar of abundance through destruction, fiery transformation and verdant growth. It's a bit harsh in some ways, but his rule over the land will involve breaking the forms and functions of his spirit court subordinates. Not just in the matter of course of his growth and establishment either, it's simply in his nature. Albeit, he'll often be breaking them into greater power, also given his nature.
A static spiritual ecosystem probably just isn't possible under Zhengui's power. Not as static as orthodox sensibilities would prefer, anyway. And Hanyi's trending the same direction, in some ways. Though that's probably more expected from weather courts? I wonder if we can attract Hill Tribe remnants to our territory because of this; a slow but regular churn of low and mid-level spirits punctuated by rare major reorganizations seems like it would work well with their novelty-seeking traditional methods.
Zhengui type abundance is not that different from normal seasonal change.
It's not like he is going to burn down the city every year or anything.
Some, adjustment, is probably necessary, but not too much, earth needs to be replenished periodically anyway for fields to work.
End game wise, I imagine large rotations of farms, where a large portion of wilderness is burning while the rest is super fertile and farmed for a few years, and then repeat.
The major cities will likely have protections / rites to not be burned, but for the smaller villages, it might be safer/easier/more-cost-effective to have populations be rotated around in the same way.
This is all very speculative, and I'm not that confident on the 2nd paragraph, but I think frequent (controlled) wild-fires are likely to happen relatively soon (like cyan zhengui or earlier)
Hmm. Speculative Zhengui x Hanyi kid: Winter/Spring duality. At lower levels manifests as Ice/Wood. Could work similarly to Zhengui's Fire and Wood both touching heavily on Earth but not actually having the element directly. In this case, the background element would be Wind, representing shifting climatic conditions. Spring Sower, Warden of Winter Winds. Cutie patootie grandkid.
I'd pay to see the reactions from the Xuan and the White Sky.
End game wise, I imagine large rotations of farms, where a large portion of wilderness is burning while the rest is super fertile and farmed for a few years, and then repeat.
