All sources of loyalty, of local attachment, were replaced with allegiance to the emperor. In place of the parallel chains of devotion forged by nobles, the emperor had put in a pyramid of petty bureaucrats—commoners who could barely write any logograms beyond those in their own names and who had to spell everything out in zyndari letters. Instead of ruling with the best, the emperor had chosen to elevate the craven, greedy, foolish, and low. In this new world, the old orderly way of life was lost. No one knew his place. Commoners were living in castles while nobles huddled in drafty huts.
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