AleksandraSucur

I also see him as a tragic person. He was consumed by stress, frustration and excess of responsibility. At such a young age, people affected by TBC would have last at least 10 years in ancient times. In drama, it was mentioned he reigned for 6 years (while in reality he reigned even less). The actor conveyed brilliantly his inner sufference

I was thinking exactly the same. If I were a Qian, I'd certainly coax the old man. 😁
But it's easy for us to say so, bc we see that what mostly made them antagonise the old man was basically the error of the sixth brother approving the Cheng Zhaoyue's tax system (thinking it will give him certain authority over the military to which most of the income was destined) and in which Hu Jinsi took part nolens-volens, more unwillingly than willingly, but they've missed that part, probably bc the shock Cheng Zhaoyue could plot such a scheme and treason was too much. Hu Jinsi saw through Cheng Zhaoyue and was indeed silent about the scheme, so he was conniving to a certain degree, but would the king believe him if he had told about Cheng Zhaoyue's intentions? No, bc the main reason why the king elevated Cheng Zhaoyue to Revenue/Treasury minister was to suppress Hu Jinsi. A sort of vicious circle in which both the 6th and the 7th fell in due to the lack of experience. For this reason, I see both of them as tragic persons.
Not to mention Shui Qiu, a true pillar to rely on.

I don't think he is inconsistent. He simply made the same error his older bro did at his time to deter the old Hu, the only difference his dead brother awaited for a formal confirmation of his status as a king. When one person is desperate, and the 7th is additionally less experienced (in particular he has 0 military experience), he/she can make wrong judgements and decisions.
What an outsider can see, like the fact he cannot buy the soldiers (who are used to obey the military authority first) with double reward asking their loyalty in return, and will even worsen his situation bc he is already poor due to the wrong taxation system, the directly involved person often can't.

It was definitely an unusual dowry. Which could be re-gifted by the bride (the dowry remains woman's personal property) only to a person who can move those warships, ie., a ruler.

Hu Jing is the main reason why Hu Jingsi would have never rebeled and took the throne of Wuyue. That son of his is such a fun (and comic relief) but he doesn't get one thing right, lol. The old man has a spirit and capability to seize the power but he is 90 y old and - with such a son - it totally makes sense that what he wants isn't the crown (he already has both the power, the authority... and even the brains to see through everybody else) but a recognition that his standing has weight, and a reasonable one. Everybody can see that, except the freightened and unexperienced 7th Prince, now a Regent. For how much we may empathise with all Qian bros, forced to navigate at their "tender age" (for Hu Jingsi even his 61-y old son is a "youth") under the shadow of such a cumbersome person, "much older than all of their ages put together", I can't hate that old man.

The dialogues are so good, I enjoy them so much that I rewatch them. Every day I hear in those dialogues at least one gem, one pearl of wisdom. Today, the most impressive was: "Opportunity is always reserved for those who are prepared".

Why there's no "philosophical" tag on MDL?

War scenes would be pointless for a drama that relies so heavily on real history. They would make sense if wars were able to resolve so many fragmentation issues in that particular period of time, seeing birth and death of 10 kingdoms and 5 self proclaimed imperial dynasties in just 6 decades. All of them failing, one after another, to deliver organic state services (justice, safety, security, free trade, at least an economic predictability if not prosperity etc), stability and extensive soft (societal, philosophical, cultural, economical...) and hard (military) power. Translated in modern language: they were all small sized powers with no convincing deterrent, that's why they've fought but no power actually won/achieved anything durable, independently of the strategy or tactics they've applied.

So, it's totally logical and natural this drama focused more on what really mattered to overcome such an "empass" state of being.

Hongchu's and Taizhen's romance indeed resembles the one between the ML and FL in LotM, they pass through a lot together and Taizhen is of great assist to QHC.
But this drama is very different from LotM, bc here are basically 4 MLs, one of them (Feng Dao) is too old for the romance, we've seen the wedding night of Zhao Kuangyin (the future emperor of the Song) with a proper, decent lady from a minor noble family (He) and know it's a marriage arranged by his father, as well as we've finally seen (in ep 23) Guo Rong's wife from Liu family (probably the same clan as the current emperor of the last dynasty/Later Han). The last couple already has children, they seem ordinary and devoted to each other. At this point of the drama, we've seen two arcs and - although we get slices of "what's going on" in different courts/settings and the leads in them - these arcs mainly deal with one ML at the time. For now, we've seen Feng Dao and Qian Hongchu's arcs and I suppose the next 2 arcs will deal mainly with Zhao Kuangyin and Guo Rong.
As for the tags on MDL... I must say, I've never understood them. They are subject to people's votes on preestablished denominators and/or clichés, so they heavily depend on what a singular viewer willing to vote perceives as important in a drama on a too restricted range of issues. It may work for idol dramas, but not for more engaging and serious dramas like this one.

I share your view. If Zhang Yanze was scary for being a sadistic cruel butcher and cannibal psycho, a devil on earth, Hu Jinsi is scary in more metaphysical way, He isn't a psycho like the first, his thoughts are deep... as his Leitmotiv of existence was F. Nietzsche's concept of the "will to power" and the motto: "everything for power, power for nothing", typical for extremely smart persons known as gray eminences in politics. Beholders of the true power behind the appearances, behind the curtains.

I've also noticed this thing, as if the author was attracted by the "power behind the power" and desired to better explore and depict specifically this type of personalities and relations as pivotal conditioners of the events that really occurred in history. I was a bit surprised there was no bg story for Zhang Yanze (the main villain in the first/Jin arc) but later understood that it wasn't necessary at all, his importance consisted only in his cruel evilness, he could have done nothing else than evil to influence the events.
The thing is different with real politicians/statesmen, they influence the events (and real history) in a very different way: either through the authority (soft power) and knowledge of politics (and human nature), like Feng Dao, Sang Wei Han, Shuiqiu Zhao Quan, Guo Wei, Fan Zhi etc., or through a silent threat of their military (hard) power (maybe combined with soft power skills as well) like Hu Jinsi.
And I also like the brothers' relationship here, it makes a lot of sense for them to be so united bc their power is highly conditioned by a power embodied by Hu Jinsi (military or materially beneficial for soldiers provided by Shanyue House which temporarily suppressed Hu Jinsi military authority).

Unfortunately, that monster had 200K of trained ferocius soldiers at his command. It's almost unbelievable how such a highly trained soldiers never rebelled against him and were willing to blindly obey him to kill and to become cannibals.

Has anybody already translated the untranslated invisible narrator speech in ep 11 when the Khitan emperor entered the court?

ah, didn't know, thank you 👍

Thank you, Meg. Yes, I am already at ep 5, it's good, costumes and interiors are amazingly accurate and even through the translation I can feel a great thought was put into dialogues and antique/regional way of expressions. I may not speak a word of Mandarin, but my ear can distinguish speakers from Wuyue (that specific "chant", a cantilena as we call these types of pronunciation in Italian) and those from other regions. I don't mind many characters at all, bc many plots are totally functional to convey exactly the feeling of confusion, of complicated, that characterised the entire period of 5Dyns/10Kingdms. It is certainly an ambitious project, we rarely see dramas set in complicated times. Hope the story will live up to the "original intention" of the author(s).

Thank you, friend. So, the script was wirtten by the author of the Imperial Age we couldn't watch bc it was never translated. Interesting

Is this an original script?

The story was definitely interesting, I'd rate it 9. But the execution... Let's start from the fact I've watched the entire drama at 1,25x speed: I've tried several times to watch it at "normal" speed but then it felt like a slow-mo. And many times I've ought to double the speed bc there were so many unnecessary scenes. Such an organisation of scenes, editing etc. doesn't even deserve a positive rating, I've thought of dropping it continuously. Kept going on only bc the story was really good, the acting was not bad, although it wasn't excellent - not all the actors delivered convincing characters (I have no idea how I've survived Chun Ge in a hero-in a game-story 🤦‍♀️) - and the settings were more or less ok but certainly not above 8.
I am sad to rate it 7,5, bc the story deserves much better, it's a rare case I'll check on a sequel if there will be one, maybe it will be the first one after I've given such a low rating, but for the reasons above I truly can't give it more (and I am a generous rater).

Yes, I've rated the first season 9, that's how much I've enjoyed it.
But this season - at least in these first eps - lacks on comedy and surprise... the efforts to create smth funny (like her remarks on his skull and so on) not only seem very artificial but are also pathetic in a way, I definitely don't feel the same enjoyment. And maybe I wouldn't be bothered with this lack, they are now a married couple, so the thrill is understandably lesser, but the cases also seem less compelling. The first case was so-so acceptable, but the second is just off. I may not have the patience if don't see a significant improvement in the next few days

The capital plot certainly felt disjointed, but this flaw would have been obvious during the very first reading and could have been replaced with a re-balancing plot as you've said. If they wanted to maintain the tea counterfeiting element and enlighten us about the life of her father (at least to have an idea of one person of that "missing" mid-generation), they could have maintain her father's story, and involve LJL as a main investigator... That duke's family story wasn't only less consistently written, but totally unnecessary. Nevertheless, they've decided it to keep it. Why? The only logical explanation that came to my mind was that the intention of the author was to make a comparison between a "matriarchal family" and "patriarchal family", both messy bc ruled autocratically, but the first is still better (also bc the old lady was greatly condoned, she cried etc. although she didn't change her mind about the correctness of the way she educated and trained those girls) and, although not completely, it is sufficiently egalitaristic for both men and women. The patriarchal family can't stand such a comparison, it will always appear worse especially towards women. That's why I dislike the very idea of such a comparison. The audiences are not fools, we all know what's patriarchal family, there are tons of costume dramas dealing with the injustice produced in them. Let us see what's in matriarchal family.

But maybe that side story was just an expedient to make us wish a whole another season at Linji, with LJL as a part of that family

yup. I've given it 8,5/10, the capital was a bit disappointing. You?