Since time immemorial, the Fate of the Earth has been in the custody of Sage Kings and Sage Emperors. To them alone can the credit be given for the birth of true States and true Realms, and all who have any claim to legitimate kingship trace their lineage in some way or other to an ancient Sage King, who is revered as the father of the dynasty.
The first Sage Kings were men who put their houses into good order, but this alone does not make a Sage King. After putting their houses into good order, they then meditated deeply on the far future of their houses, considering every danger that could possibly present itself. Being perspicacious, they saw how to destroy the threats to their house before they became dangerous and so cultivated durability. They strengthened the foundations of their houses, built sturdy walls, periodically refurbished the beams and rafters, kept surfaces clear of dust and dirt, sealed and resealed the doors, and most importantly, kept the hearth lit day and night. Doing so, they guaranteed their houses would not fall even after a thousand generations. In strengthening their house, however, they won wide influence, becoming famous and respected for their order, resilience and longevity, inspiring awe not unlike that which one feels when perceiving a mountain, and heroes from near and far flocked to them to offer their services, to throw in their lots with them and have a share in the general tranquility. Under their names, disparate yet similar tribes were united, seamlessly and without violence, as though it was their Destiny and they were already aware of it. The Sage King accomplishes nothing by force. He does not construct his throne, but rather all the forces above Heaven and below unite to materialize his throne for him. He is merely the occasion for the rising of the throne out of the soil. All he need do then is to sit and face south. When the Sage King sits down on that earthen throne for the first time, he knows it to be his destiny, and yet he does not believe that Heaven merely dropped the scepter capriciously into his hands, for his ascendancy is rather a work that goes back to the very founding of the house, nurtured through all its winters and vicissitudes, before finally proving itself to be foretold. All of which is more often than not the labor of a thousand years or more.
At any rate, since the rising out of the ground of the Sage King's throne is nothing short of a miracle of Heaven, Heaven sees to it that it takes place behind an adequate curtain of mist, as it does with all miracles. In the course of the coming together of the new kingdom, there is sometimes a ground-shaking conflict of all and sundry of the ambitious in the region. This conflict serves to clear the ground of old waste and overgrowth to make room for the new kingdom to sink its roots, but at that point, while the conflict itself is inevitable, tied by Fate to a particular arrangement of the stars, its outcome rests upon the deeds of heroes and the fortunes of houses that have been fixed well in advance. When all the preparations have been thus made, when the Earth has been softened and ploughed, finally when the stars align perfectly and Heaven proclaims the ripeness of the greater seasons, then the Sage King arises and takes his seat. At other times, there is no such conflict to prepare the way, because in some parts of the World--especially those on the peripheries of the World where mankind is sparse to begin with--there is no waste and overgrowth to clear, but so long as the climate will allow it, any house hardy enough can sink its roots deeply and without impediment. Regardless of when, where and how, and whether in the dust of war or the mist of an unknown frontier, the Sage King rises and everything falls into place in an unspeakable way. From that point on, the Sage King is sovereign, and he and his house hold the reigns of government for the composition and exaltation of the new kingdom and the weaving of the common destinies of the families that are united within it.
But the Sage King is different from a mere warlord or a chief--he is a Sage, and it is only his Sagacity that makes him worthy of the title of King. Hardly any sovereign who has not been sanctified either by being a Sage or being the descendant or accessory of one is worthy of the dignity of that hallowed title. That is not my law, it is Heaven's law, for as the experience of all ages attests copiously, anyone who rises above his dignity, whether he be driven by hubris or mere tomfoolery, is cut down one way or another, at some time or another, for Heaven is the knower of fitness and justice. And it is his Sagacity that separates the Sage King from the tyrant, who is an unhallowed and spiritless sovereign who rules by the threat of violence or by honeyed words and who does not aim at the composition of the kingdom, nor even his own house in many cases, but solely at the acquisition of personal wealth. Examples of such rulers proliferate throughout history, and as a corollary of their pervasiveness, the states and edifices they come into the possession of are also numerous, which speaks to their evanescence and ignobility. When Heaven builds, it does so with a mind of bringing things into lasting and subtle presence, because Heaven wants to make everything more like it, and Heaven is the most lasting and the most subtly present. Hence it sends Sages. But when men who are unsanctified by a Heavenly mandate try their luck at creating a lasting domain, the most they can do is to strengthen their house as discussed above; certainly the seeds of a Sagacious realm are there, but were a patriarch whose house had been strengthened even a thousand times to try to put together a kingdom without the aid and solicitation of Heaven, he would fail and be cut down, or else he would succeed only in constructing a vain edifice that collapses as soon as the wind picks up. In the end he would become nothing more than a tyrant, and he would expend all of his and his house's resources to attain everything he would lose the very next day. The house which is not sanctified cannot be a royal house. Even when it seems that royal houses have arisen in the backwaters of dying empires among illiterate barbarians, we can always find a source of lingering Sagacity nearby that lends them some legitimacy, and ironically it often emanates from the dying empire itself. But this is because, as we just said, when Heaven builds it builds permanently. Whenever there is a dying empire, you must know that once it was a center of overflowing prosperity and grandeur and enjoyed tranquil rule due to the virtue of its kings; it could not have reached that height without the work of Sages with a Heavenly mandate. But even when the empire's fortunes begin to wane--as is the fate of all empires--that Sagacity does not disappear, it does not even cool slightly, but it disperses from the center of the old, crumbling capital and into the frontiers, where it impregnates the air and the soil making it possible for new fires to be lit.
Naturally we must wonder what Sagacity looks like when it is in the hands of kings, and a little reflection will do much to lend us material from which to draw the essence. As we have already made clear, Sagacity means there is a continuity of the Ages, that the present is bound up with the past like links in a chain, and that this continuity serves as the guarantee of the persistence and longevity of the egos of Sages past. Of course, the Sage takes the perpetuation of his ego to be his first principle, but his ego is also not different from Heaven's, for every Sage, whether buried in the remote past or standing on the farthest horizon of the future, has a mind to Heaven that brings him into harmony with the stars themselves. That should mean that the continuity of the ages should be just as easily cultivated in any one given epoch as in another, for all one need do is to gaze upon the countenance of Heaven and act accordingly. But if that were the case, we would not observe the phenomenon of Heaven's Chain, for in all cases we do not observe things to be patterned off one single principle, but this principle in addition to a series of intermediary principles. In all cases we observe degrees of closeness and distance, but Heaven is the most distant from all Worlds, and it is only the magnificence and pristine brightness of Heaven that allows its figure to be traced in any era, while its mysterious depths, its articulate vignettes, the intricate foldings of its tendons and trills, remain inestimable by ordinary eyes. All the Sage Kings surely take Heaven as their model and their first principle, but even within themselves, within the depths of their own egos and the treasure rooms of their own houses, there lies the work of Heaven that has been borne down, that is to say, that has been brought closer, and while this golden kernel may itself only be a remnant of Heaven, like the seal of a long-forgotten king, nevertheless it offers us a glimpse, limited by that medium, of the intricacies and mysteries of Heaven that cannot be obtained through direct observation of Heaven's figure.
Where does the Sage King obtain this golden kernel, without which his work will fail before it has even set out? Since it has come closer from what is the most far, it has already passed through a myriad of epochs before reaching his hands, which should already tell you precisely where it comes from. The infinite body of History resides in that golden kernel, which is nothing but the work of the myriads of Sages who have gone before, who have borne Heaven's Chain through all particularity up to that point, where the present Sage King extracts the latest link out of the people and, after researching the details of its downward procession, after testing the character of the metal it is made out of and using alchemy to remove any rust that may have accumulated on it, begins to forge the next link, like a keen smith, knowing exactly how this new link must be forged in order for it to receive and be received by the latest link and, through it, the entirety of Heaven's Chain. With a mind to these things, the Sage King composes the rites, laws and offices of the new kingdom. But he cannot compose them without already having known them since the time of his birth, which is why the establishment of the new kingdom is nothing more than the maturation of them within him. There is no need for him to rack his brains, nor even to consult spirits, to come up with these rites, laws and offices, for they are native to him, already placed there by spirits, and that they should spring forth from his mouth as he sits on the dais is no more strange than that a pure and elegant stream should flow from the depths of a budding spring. The Earth then carries off that stream, caresses it, nurtures its nascent flow, feeling not the slightest bit alienated by it despite its sudden surging forth out of the shadowy depths, because after all what the spring spawned out of was the Earth itself, and in just this same way, the people hear the ordinances of the Sage King and take them in as though being reminded of something they already knew but which the enticing distractions of timeliness had caused them to forget. A revelatory moment causes them to remember them, which is the Sage King himself. For that reason, the ordinances of the Sage King which compose the kingdom are not, indeed cannot be, refused by the people, for were the people to refuse them they would be refusing themselves. And though the Sage King may hold a godly sword in his right hand, it is merely there as the outward signal of his dignity; the threat of its sting does not prop up the King's dignity, but is a symbol of that dignity which already holds sway. And the people are not frightened by the sword, for although it is in the King's hands, they feel the same as though it were in all of their hands, the King being the exalted and elect hero whom Heaven had sent to bear it into the World.
From this special relationship that obtains between the Sage King and the people, which cannot but be described as perfectly unique, with the people in the King and the King in the people, it might seem as though the Sage King and the people are of one and the same substance. However, this is not true. If it were true, it would then follow that the true sovereignty that is held by Sage Kings was something that could be manufactured by ordinary human hands. But this contradicts what we said above, namely that by human hands, the most one can do is strengthen the foundation of one's house, thus giving it the potential for Sagacity. The people cannot give themselves a Sage King, nor can they search from among themselves to elect one to become a Sage King. They can only prepare the country to receive a Sage King from Heaven and, once the Sage King does arise, accept him and aid him in composing the kingdom. It is equally absurd to suggest that the people can, on their own, gather and deliberate among themselves with the design of giving to themselves rites, laws and offices. For this would be like the people gathering and deliberating to give themselves a language. Certainly the people are already in possession of a natural disposition which contains hints and seeds of their true rites, laws and offices. But in the hands of the people, these are no more than unconscious tendencies. Even given a thousand generations they will not turn into true rites, laws and offices, if simply left on their own with nothing but hopeful anticipation. They will not compose themselves, but must be composed by a revelation received through a window to the True Way. But the people cannot hope to find or create this window by themselves, for they do not know where to look. Only Heaven, the high Intelligence behind the True Way, can initiate the linking up of the people with that Way, and the Sage King is simply the one that does this work as the hand and mouth of Heaven. And so he composes. As he composes, he channels the natural disposition of the people, which Heaven has made clear to him, and which are the fruits of thousands of years of unfolding Fate. But the Sage King does so while simultaneously having a mind to Heaven and having already entered into kinship with the elder Sages who have transmitted the mysteries of Heaven to him along with the secret annals of History. This elixir, which the people cannot brew on their own, is what catalyzes the transfiguration of the people's natural disposition into a higher, more articulate, a more expressive and meaningful form, and it is out of this that the civilized rites, laws and offices are composed. This means that, when the Sage King composes rites, laws and offices, he does not merely extract them from the natural impulses and dispositions of the people and carve them into stone, but he transforms and transfigures them, as though by a kind of alchemy. A great poet, divinely inspired, does not merely copy the daily utterances of the people, nor does he compose in an altogether made up tongue, but appropriating the speech of the people, he transfigures it, gives it a second life, balancing innovation with piety, creating something all feel like they have heard before, but none can tell when or where, because they have actually not heard it in the past, but in the future. A godly poet can tap into his language and draw from it this hidden nectar, and just so can a Sage King his people. Just like this, in these transfigured impulses and dispositions, the people recognize themselves, which is why they do not resist their composition, but they do not merely recognize themselves as they currently are, but in a truer, higher, a more perfected, more refined form of themselves.
The transformation that takes place thanks to the unique power of the Sage Kings is the transformation of civilization and enlightenment. It starts and finishes in as little as one generation, but can take as long as three or four. After the transformation is complete, the country and the people will never be the same. A new standard is erected at the very site where the Sage King proclaims the new laws, which becomes the center of the World. The City that is built there to house the royal house and its attaches becomes the Capital, the resplendent beacon that salvages the new World from darkness, whose terrific light even spills into the borderlands inhabited by alien races. In the person of the Sage King, north is united with south and east with west. In the house of the Sage King, 'now' is united with 'then' and past with future. In the palace of the Sage King live beauties from different corners of the Realm, each one is unlike all the others, but in the style of their colorful dresses and the rouge on their faces they are united. When they play music to honor the Sage King and his guests, not a single note is out of tune, no one part tyrannizes another, and the ensemble scrapes the ceiling of Heaven with the same leisure and litheness as it plumbs the depths of the Earth. The Royal Music wafts out of the palace doors and captivates the ears of the nobles and common people. It alerts their hearts to the existence of a kind of virtue and righteousness that is broader in scope and deeper in color than any kind they have experienced before. The wind from the pipes rustles their hair, and the direction of its flow draws their attention to a crevice on the old mountain they never noticed there before. For when a new light shines over an old plain, new things are bound to be revealed.