Throne War

Story Summary for Throne War:

The Emperor is found deathly ill one day. Gao Zhang is forced to replace him in order to stay in power. At first, he uses a shape-changing demon to take his place. The demon is discovered by Oliver Chen, an Ascended agent, and Oliver begins to subtly encourage the demon's darker pursuits. The Hand also realize that something is amiss, and decide that this is their opportunity to seat their own Emperor and expose the Lotus. Their local agent, Leung Mui, calls up the rebels she has been organizing under the banner of The Black Flag. The Hand also begin arranging for large numbers of reinforcements from the 1850s juncture.

Gao Zhang arranges for a long-term replacement for the Emperor. He strikes a bargain with Xin Kai Sheng, a powerful sorcerer not affiliated with the Lotus, and who is related to the previous ruling family.

When he realizes what the Demon Emperor has been up to, Gao Zhang confronts him and kills him. Meanwhile, Oliver Chen has smuggled the real Emperor to a safe place. Gao Zhang finds a substitute who looks like the Emperor, then arranges to have him killed in a public display designed to spring Xin Kai Sheng on the masses. An attack by the Jammers happens to coincide with the speech, and ends up cementing Xin Kai Sheng's claim as he proves himself in battle.

Xin Kai Sheng leads the Lotus forces to deal with the Jammers, then takes the battle against the Black Flag. The Hand reinforcements have not appeared (they were to come through the gate in Nine Dragon Temple, which was destroyed by in the Year of the Dragon story), so the Lotus defeat the Hand and maintain control of the Chinese empire.

There is also a sideplot involving flashbacks about how The Monkey Who Would Be King got involved with this mess, and the Purists' role in creating him. In one sentence or less, Celeste Carter snuffs out The Monkey so he can't spill any beans about the Purists' secret plans.

This story summary was written by Stefan Vincent, and can originally be found on his website, here.