Everything happened so fast, like a forest fire that quickly burnt everything to the ground. Six months after that day, the Empire was finally in peril.
The soldiers were demoralized to the ground, with the absence from their Golden Emperor who refused to leave the Palace of Serene Harmony and get over his grieving even after eight months of his wife's death, alongside the news of Empress Xiuying death, alongside how pitiful he was during her last breath, starved to death, calling his husband's name even after he got banished and starved by the same husband.
Maybe the citizen didn't know how important the infertile Ger Empress was. But for the soldiers, he was a beauty they would be willing to kneel to.
And that beauty was gone because their Emperor was too prideful and didn't see how important the Empress was.