The King Is Not a Figurehead to the Peasants

The king was seen as impossibly high above even his high ministers who were known non-jokingly as, quote, we who carry the king's excrement on our heads. At royal audiences, the princes, mandarins and other dignitaries crouch on all fours with their knees and elbows on the floor and their hands raised together before their heads. No one has the right to speak unless the king addresses him and no one may publicly disagree with anything the king says. Each spring crowds gathered to watch the royal oxen plow the sacred furrow from which the king's astrologer would divine whether or not there would be plenty or famine in the year ahead.