...
Just after 7 a.m.
In taverns, teahouses, and various other "public places" in counties great and small across the land, a certain rumor began to circulate.
It said that the reason a solar eclipse occurred today, with the Heavenly Hound devouring the sun, was that Heaven was casting down punishment, seeking to chastise the Emperor.
That this was a warning that the Emperor had ruled poorly and was unworthy to be Monarch.
As this rumor spread, the common folk blamed all the droughts, wars, and every misfortune of the past few years on the current Emperor.
They said it was precisely because so many ill omens had appeared that, today, Heaven had finally come to mete out punishment.
Just past noon, voices calling for Emperor Yong'an to abdicate and for King Wei to take the throne rose up everywhere, growing ever louder.
Once local authorities received the people's reactions, memorials like flurries of snow were dispatched by fast couriers toward the Capital.
