Hi everyone. A quick update before we get into this supplemental episode. So basically, February was a completely lost month, as our household was besieged by whatever flu bug has been going around this year. Between me, my wife, and our kid, we had five fevers in February, for half the month

that was too sick to even edit pre-recorded material, and after the fevers, we had the

oh-so-fun recovery from bronchitis that just never seemed to end. In fact, it's only been in the

past week that my voice has recovered enough for me to even think about recording anything.

So it was a good thing that I was able to pre-record a couple extra episodes back in January,

because that has been what you've been listening to during the past month.

This episode is also pre-recorded.

I am hoping to get back to recording by next weekend, but we'll see.

In the meantime, enjoy this supplemental episode,

and I hope to get back into my routine real soon.

Thanks as always for tuning in.

Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is a supplemental episode.

In this episode, I'm going to talk a little bit about the imperial hereditary seal.

In the romance of the three kingdoms, the seal initially belonged to the Han emperor,

but it disappeared amid the chaos of the purging of the palace eunuchs.

Sun Jian later discovered it in the ruins of the former capital Luoyang, and it brought him nothing but trouble, and indirectly

led to his death. His son Sun Tze then gave the seal to Yuan Shu as collateral to borrow

troops to conquer a slice of the empire. With the seal in hand, Yuan Shu dreamed imperial dreams

and declared himself emperor, and nothing went right for him after that,

and he ended up defeated, disgraced, and dead.

But the novel is not the only, or first place where the seal is mentioned.

...