As the emperor's procession passed by

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The emperor was traveling by on a procession but the cattle didn't care did they.  At least the householders had gotten out of the gate to prostrate themselves in front of the traveling party. Not that the emperor would notice, they said he wasn't noticing anything besides his new mistress these days but it wasn't the old doddering fool you had to fear these days. It was the governors and the local tax collectors that were the problem.

They were just looking to create trouble. You have more than two pieces of cattle and they consider you to a threat. Sometimes they come about in the compound with a soldier or too, as a courtesy call they say but everybody knows they're looking to see if you've hidden extra swords or guns from the westerners. So paranoid they were these days. The center was falling, the Kingdom was crumbling and anytime the emperor could be gone. After the old man passed away the power of the seven islands could be in anybody's hand. They were all positioning themselves to be the next power broker. The real games would be played in the capital, among all the temples and palaces and gardens but you had to watch out for a back. After all if the local governor pledged allegiance to one lord and you rebelled against them in favor of their opposition it wouldn't look good for them at all. They'd come of as weak and pathetic if their side won, and if they lost, their head would need a better stand to be placed at.

The problem was the insecurity of the imperial office itself. It didn't trust the local lords or governors with a large fighting army, so even the senior members of the bureaucracy and the army had but a few handful of armed men to support them. Any small disagreement or civil issue could turn into an armed rebellion. Which was a reason to maintain good relations with the community...you didn't want anybody to think they could defeat you in a conflict, so everybody had to be kept quiet. A difficult balancing act because the emperor's demands for taxes only increased as the years went by. That had helped maintain peace and prosperity in the towns and villages and the rulers had been unable to become the tyrannical overlords they were in other places. On the other hand they were terribly insecure children, as anybody with half a beef against you could create serious trouble. So you made sure to make house-calls upon everyone, disguised as social nicety, when in reality you were evaluating the risk of threat from everybody who could be a part of an action against you. It must be tiring to be a lord, they were all thin and with deep-sunken eyes.