The restoration of the Han Dynasty began with the Horus Rebellion.

Chapter 90 The Legend of the Yutalos River

Chapter 91 The Legend of the Yutalos River

Rogue trader.

Judging solely from the name, one might not think this person is of any noble status; furthermore, the item name "Trade Permit" might lead some uninformed people to believe that this person is simply a merchant or caravan leader.

That would be very wrong.

In nature, the trading licenses of the wandering merchants are more like "licenses of privateering" from the Age of Exploration in ancient Terra. This proves that a family, with the Emperor's permission, can expand the Empire's territory and thereby establish a trade alliance that can span across the stars.

Due to the supreme and special status of the emperor in the human empire, trade licenses personally issued by him have an even more special status.

As chosen ones personally authorized by the Emperor, traveling merchants can generally do anything within the scope of imperial law—and even anything outside of it—as long as they can prove to the Emperor that it is beneficial to the Empire.

This includes allying with the Xenomorphs, recruiting Imperial enemies as subordinates, and even overstepping his authority to command the Astral Army and Astartes warriors...

These are not hypothetical scenarios, but genuine facts; they are things that traveling merchants and wandering warriors could do, and things that others have done as well.

Of course, the most outrageous of all was Sun Qian's act of openly establishing a second empire under this pretext—

From any perspective, this is utterly absurd and sensational.

But surprisingly...

Even such heinous acts were considered "legal" by the traveling merchants.

The reason is simple: power comes from the one who grants it. Trade licenses issued and signed by the emperor himself represent the emperor's will from the very beginning.

No matter how outrageous the actions of the traveling merchants, only the Terran Council and the Emperor have the right to judge them.

This means they have legal immunity outside of Terra.

Of course, just like the pardons and iron certificates of immortality in ancient Terra, no one would be foolish enough to abuse such power endorsed by the supreme ruler.

After all, even a single instance of abuse of power could allow the Terra Council to revoke the legitimacy of a trade license. Therefore, for most merchant ronin families, this was merely a symbol of the Emperor's trust in their family. Often, the moment when they had to exercise their privileges was a matter of life and death for the family.

Therefore, even though the family's finances were on the verge of bankruptcy, the current or former head of the Yutalos family, Merekson Yutalos, could not actually use his privileges to do anything too outrageous. He could only mortgage them to the followers of the Theocracy in exchange for funds.

But...

What if we can't contact Terra?

Or perhaps Terra turned a blind eye to this?

Since Perturabo exploited Terra's desire to drive away the wolves and tigers, Sun Qian naturally realized this as well.

Firstly, he happened to know of a top-level merchant ronin trade license that had been lost and bore the mark of the emperor's blood.

Secondly, he possessed 100,000 Astartes, which was sufficient to enforce his right to the trade licenses by force;

more importantly.

Sun Qian firmly believes in Terra and will support their approach.

It is not to support them in establishing their own independent regime and splitting the empire.

Instead, they hoped that they could contend with Peturabo, buying time for the warp storm to subside and Terra to regroup.

But after Dagunnet seized the trade license, Sun Qian still faced one last problem.

Trade licenses are for family authorization, not like the Imperial Seal of the State, which grants anyone who holds it the power to become emperor—in fact, the Imperial Seal of the State doesn't have that function either.

Therefore, Sun Qian still needs to find an heir to the Yutalos family to cooperate with.

Just as he was considering whether to find the current head of the family, Merekson Yutalos, or secretly eliminate him and then find a family heir to support as a puppet...

Upon seeing the license, Sun Qian was instantly dumbfounded.

because.

"You wrote the information on the trade license, didn't you, brother?"

Sun Qian said with a somewhat subtle expression, he never expected that there would be a neat and elegant ancient Terran Chinese text below the High Gothic Treaty.

For most people, the content here is just some ancient Terran mystical symbols.

more importantly.

"And you were the first person to sign this license."

Sun Qian looked at the signature "Liu Xuande, Magistrate of Pingyuan" and turned to look at Liu Bei with a mixture of amusement and exasperation.

Sun Qian had been wondering why the Yutalos family, though only holding the rank of baron, possessed the honor of having a trade license personally granted by the emperor.

It's not surprising at all from this perspective. Although strictly speaking, "Pingyuan Ling" is an official position rather than a noble title, it can indeed be considered a "baron" in terms of actual ruling hierarchy.

As for why Liu Bei insisted on this title—

He recalled the mindset and ambition he mentioned when he first met Liu Bei.

For Liu Bei, although he eventually became a regional hegemon in his previous life, his fondest memories were probably the time when he and his three brothers fought side by side to support the Han Dynasty during his time as magistrate of Pingyuan.

"That's the past I should have abandoned."

Liu Bei looked at his old signature with a complicated expression.

"I originally thought that when I fully regained my memories of my past life, chose to leave my family, underwent the Astartes surgery, and joined the Legion, I had already said goodbye to the name Yutalos."

Upon hearing this, Sun Qian's pupils contracted slightly.

This was the first time he had learned that Liu Bei's memory did not seem to have fully returned from the beginning.

Furthermore, judging from the permitted age for Astartes to undergo modification...

Before he came of age, Liu Bei had already rendered meritorious service to the empire as the head of the Yutalos family and obtained a trade license issued by the emperor.

That explains why, during the Istvan III incident, Liu Bei said that he had failed the emperor's trust.

But there's something else strange about it.

"You're wondering why the Yutalos family doesn't have the surname Liu, right?"

Liu Bei seemed to have seen through Sun Qian's thoughts.

"The Eutalos family was not founded by me, but is an ancient family that has been passed down since the time of ancient Terra... After experiencing the Golden Age and the Age of Strife, the family once prospered and then declined. In the end, for some reason, the family name was even lost. When the descendants wanted to find the family name, they found that some of the family legends overlapped with the legends of ancient Greece... A god-king named Zeus impregnated a woman on the banks of the Eutalos River, thus giving birth to the family bloodline of demigods and demigods."

Sun Qian's pupils suddenly contracted slightly. He immediately thought of something else: "But later, according to my investigation, this seems to be some kind of misconception, because the history of the Han Dynasty in ancient Terra has been completely lost for some reason... In fact, this was the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty in ancient Terra, Emperor Gaozu of Han—"

That is, the deeds of my ancestors!

Liu Bei looked at Sun Qian and said decisively.

"Yutalos is Liu!"

At this point, Sun Qian realized that the historical gaps regarding the Three Kingdoms and the Han Dynasty were extremely puzzling.

As a dynasty with a long history, it is impossible that it left no records at all.

This is practically like being... by someone.

Or perhaps something has erased it.

Just as Sun Qian was about to ask Liu Bei more questions about history...

【Beep beep beep】

The emergency communicator beeped urgently. Sun Qian and Liu Bei exchanged a glance and immediately connected the call.

"An emergency has occurred, Sun Qian."

Loken's deep, gloomy voice rang out, immediately giving Sun Qian an ominous premonition.

"Petulabo just requested a meeting with us in person, and I gave him the runaround you suggested, but..."

"Lord Guilliman went to the meeting to negotiate after learning of this, but was captured by Peturabo!"

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