But then again, if Goujun's aware of what Li's doing, why not take him down through official channels?
My conclusion, after wrestling with settei for various stories, is that we don't have enough information on how Heaven works to make certain decisions.
First off, we don't know how much bureaucracy and military interact. Li started as bureaucracy and I'm assuming did much of his machination as a bureaucrat. Providing Nataku was the coup that got him into the Emperor's favour. Nataku's continued string of triumphs has settled him there to the point where the Emperor has now given his father jurisdiction over the army as well. But we don't know when that happened or how official it was, because it seems to be news to various people.
Like Tenpou when he goes to see Li about Kenren. He may have forgotten it in his anger but that doesn't seem too likely. A major upheaval like that should have had the army buzzing. I see no reason for Tenpou saying Since when have you been in a position to offer *me* a chair?? if he's really unaware that Li now outranks him *in military terms as well*.
Equally, Goujun may know that Li has provided a toushin taishi and possibly infers that Li is angling for greater favours on that basis but doesn't realize that Li is after a position where he can interfere so directly in Goujun's army as to imprison his men reduce them to the ranks.
The other problem is what exactly channels are? How do you get rid of an Emperor's favourite when the favourite has provided an essential service like the toushin? In the end it may be that everything depends on the Emperor himself. Goujun's position is high enough and near enough to Li's that if Goujun had made the suggestion, the Emperor would have listened to him and Li wouldn't have been able to refuse so flatly. But actually to get rid of Litouten must involve getting rid of Nataku somehow, or discrediting him in the Emperor's eyes, and at the very least providing an alternative toushin, none of which Goujun is in a position to do.
I don't see a problem with Tenpou either. I think you're assuming he's done more masterminding than he has. He has suspicions of Li- quite rightly. He has an hypothesis of what happened to catapult him into power, but as he tells Konzen it's only an hypothesis. If provable it might discredit Litouten, but it has to come from an unimpeachable source. I assume he takes Konzen into his confidence because Konzen is the highest place bureaucrat that he knows and has connections to a separate source of power, Kanzeon, that *might* help him in a confrontation: and perhaps because he senses in him another possibly disaffected soul. But he doesn't have enough power or information to act against Li himself: he only confronts Li when he's on the edge of losing it.
The ultimate crisis is precipitated by Gokuu and Tenpou gets swept up in it, by laudably choosing to side with his friends and not Heaven. I don't see him screwing with anybody, myself.
How to topple a colossus
But then again, if Goujun's aware of what Li's doing, why not take him down through official channels?
My conclusion, after wrestling with settei for various stories, is that we don't have enough information on how Heaven works to make certain decisions.
First off, we don't know how much bureaucracy and military interact. Li started as bureaucracy and I'm assuming did much of his machination as a bureaucrat. Providing Nataku was the coup that got him into the Emperor's favour. Nataku's continued string of triumphs has settled him there to the point where the Emperor has now given his father jurisdiction over the army as well. But we don't know when that happened or how official it was, because it seems to be news to various people.
Like Tenpou when he goes to see Li about Kenren. He may have forgotten it in his anger but that doesn't seem too likely. A major upheaval like that should have had the army buzzing. I see no reason for Tenpou saying Since when have you been in a position to offer *me* a chair?? if he's really unaware that Li now outranks him *in military terms as well*.
Equally, Goujun may know that Li has provided a toushin taishi and possibly infers that Li is angling for greater favours on that basis but doesn't realize that Li is after a position where he can interfere so directly in Goujun's army as to imprison his men reduce them to the ranks.
The other problem is what exactly channels are? How do you get rid of an Emperor's favourite when the favourite has provided an essential service like the toushin? In the end it may be that everything depends on the Emperor himself. Goujun's position is high enough and near enough to Li's that if Goujun had made the suggestion, the Emperor would have listened to him and Li wouldn't have been able to refuse so flatly. But actually to get rid of Litouten must involve getting rid of Nataku somehow, or discrediting him in the Emperor's eyes, and at the very least providing an alternative toushin, none of which Goujun is in a position to do.
I don't see a problem with Tenpou either. I think you're assuming he's done more masterminding than he has. He has suspicions of Li- quite rightly. He has an hypothesis of what happened to catapult him into power, but as he tells Konzen it's only an hypothesis. If provable it might discredit Litouten, but it has to come from an unimpeachable source. I assume he takes Konzen into his confidence because Konzen is the highest place bureaucrat that he knows and has connections to a separate source of power, Kanzeon, that *might* help him in a confrontation: and perhaps because he senses in him another possibly disaffected soul. But he doesn't have enough power or information to act against Li himself: he only confronts Li when he's on the edge of losing it.
The ultimate crisis is precipitated by Gokuu and Tenpou gets swept up in it, by laudably choosing to side with his friends and not Heaven. I don't see him screwing with anybody, myself.