AleksandraSucur

The worst thing about the family (biological or "sworn") is in having so much expectation from you. And nobody can manipulate us except people we love and trust ofc.

You're right, both of them made the same substantial error at the beginning of their reign. In the drama, 7th was represented as less clever, bc he didn't expect the formal investiture by the emperor to oppose Hu Jingsi in the drama (while in real history, he was invested but not in the same way as the 6th, so the script simplified that story for the sake of our patience).
And you're again right: the 7th was largely influenced by his 6th bro, both in the drama and in real history. In both real and dramatised stories, he acted as he could have deal with HJ better than his bro - the thing which didn't happen.
That's why I am very prone to believe the drama conveyed the basics of what really happened in history

It wasn't the 6th who gave him that advice on his deathbed, it was Hongchu, who is practical and reluctant to take the hot potato.

Thank you for remembering my name. ❤️This time I truly didn't contribute much as I am not much familiar with this era but eeextreeemely curious about it, I am browsing it like crazy myself, lol.
As PBG said above, "the ending is known", bc the story is framed within real historical events, but how the plot and characters are moving towards those "endings" is up to the author. And we all must acknowledge to him a rare audacity to even treat such a "chaotic time", as Megumi-H put it.
I personally don't care if the author takes great artistic freedoms in representing the real historical characters if the trip (=plot, story, credibility of the setting) he/she has chosen makes sense and gets the story towards that ending(s). Imo, the storyline makes sense as well as the four main leads (and many other side characters) and the whole drama represents the main point of conflicts in a convincing way for the audience. A drama cannot be a documentary of the time - we will all end sleeping if it was, it still must contain basic elements of "dramatic" to keep our attention up and mine hasn't dropped one bit, on the contrary. I'm still in awe with the scriptwriter and I doubt I'll rate it below 9,5/10, it doesn't keep us on the edge of our seats but in turn offers incredible dialogues and thoughts, depicting deep relations and understanding of the world, things we rarely see in dramas. I enjoy them, rewatch them, think about them later (while doing other things in my life) and feel very glad, satisfied and satiated with smth I really needed.

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?