Anshi's Faction Opposes Gyokuyou's Crown Prince in The Apothecary Diaries

Scene Locator

Volume 3, Chapter 13: Anshi and Gyokuyou share a composed private atmosphere, and Gyokuyou permits the Empress Dowager to know sensitive information about her pregnancy. This is important evidence against reading them as straightforward personal enemies.

Volume 8, Chapter 9: the Emperor acknowledges that Gyokuyou must remain conscious of her mother-in-law's gaze. The pressure is real even when personal hostility is not stated.

Volume 13, Chapter 5: prejudice against Gyokuyou's western appearance extends to the Crown Prince, while Jinshi remains an alternative candidate whom older political interests can support.

Volume 14, Chapter 13: the narration explicitly distinguishes the Empress faction from the Empress Dowager faction. It says the latter does not favor the Crown Prince's strong western blood and resents that the Eastern Palace position, held for years by the imperial younger brother, has passed to Gyokuyou's son.

Volume 15, Chapter 12: if the Emperor's operation fails, the Crown Prince would inherit before the age of five and Gyokuyou's father Yuyuan would become regent. The narration states that the Empress Dowager faction naturally does not want that result.

The Short Answer

The Empress Dowager faction has strong reasons to oppose Gyokuyou's son taking the throne while he is still a child. Its objection combines prejudice against his western ancestry, fear that Yuyuan would control a child emperor as regent, resentment toward the rising Yu house, and the existence of an adult alternative in Jinshi.

The decisive detail is that Jinshi is not merely a useful royal official. Under the court's official genealogy, he is Anshi's son and the current Emperor's younger brother. For years he occupied the Eastern Palace position. Supporting him would therefore keep the succession close to the Empress Dowager's public family line while avoiding a regency dominated by Gyokuyou's father.

But the novel does not show Anshi personally announcing that she rejects her grandson. It names and explains the Empress Dowager faction. That distinction is essential.

The Novel Says "Empress Dowager Faction," Not Anshi Personally

Political labels in The Apothecary Diaries do not always describe the private wishes of the person whose title they borrow. Volume 14 explains that the Empress Dowager faction is centered on Anshi's natal family, General Lu, and established houses that dislike the rising new party around Gyokuyou's father.

The same passage also says Anshi is not close to her natal family. That matters because her relatives can use her title, her public family line, and the old court's prestige without perfectly representing her judgment. Volume 15 makes the separation even clearer: Anshi's half-brother Hao attacks western blood and worries that power will move to the Yu family, while the Emperor recognizes that Anshi herself is passive toward Hao's ambitions and dislikes him.

So the safest canon reading is not "Anshi hates Gyokuyou's son." It is: a political bloc organized around the Empress Dowager's side has reasons to prevent the child from becoming emperor. For the broader structure of that bloc, see the Anshi and Gyokuyou faction guide.

Jinshi Is Anshi's Legal Son, and That Changes Everything

Jinshi's hidden biological parentage does not erase his public legal identity. To the court, he is the son of Empress Dowager Anshi, the Emperor's younger brother, and the royal adult who held the heir's position before Gyokuyou's son replaced him.

This means the Empress Dowager faction is not choosing between a relative and a stranger. It can compare Anshi's legally recognized adult son with Anshi's young grandson. Volume 14 makes the calculation blunt: from a relative's point of view, the candidate who can directly participate in government is more useful.

Jinshi also does not require a regent. He already has administrative experience, military visibility, and the rank needed to act in his own name. Even though he personally rejects the throne, factions can still promote him. His wishes do not prevent other people from treating his official birth record as political capital.

Anshi's Public Motherhood Creates Old Legitimacy

The legal relationship gives Anshi's side a continuity argument. Jinshi can be presented as the adult continuation of the previous succession order, not as a sudden invention. The faction can say that the throne once pointed toward him and that replacing him with a child tied to a rising western house created the present danger.

This is why Jinshi's position should be read beside the Emperor's brother-or-son dilemma and the Emperor's alternative succession question. His private truth and public legal identity produce different loyalties, but both affect the throne.

Western Blood Is the Public Objection

Gyokuyou's red hair, green eyes, and western family background make her son visibly different from what conservative officials expect. Volume 13 notes that many people dislike those inherited features. Volume 14 then identifies the Empress Dowager faction as specifically unfavorable toward a Crown Prince with strong western blood.

This language gives political opponents a respectable-looking excuse. They can describe prejudice as concern for legitimacy, tradition, or national stability. Yet the deeper struggle is also about which family gains lasting access to the center of government.

The Crown Prince's appearance therefore becomes a symbol onto which older houses project their fear of the western-connected Yu family. The child has done nothing to create that conflict. His body simply makes his maternal ancestry impossible for the court to ignore.

Yuyuan's Regency Is the Real Power Problem

Volume 15 turns abstract faction rivalry into an immediate constitutional problem. If the Emperor dies during surgery, Gyokuyou's son becomes emperor before reaching five. A child can inherit the title, but he cannot govern the state alone. The likely regent is Gyokuyou's father, Yuyuan.

For the Empress Dowager faction, that outcome would transfer practical authority to the very house it already resents. The conflict is therefore not only "Which boy has the better claim?" It is also "Which adult family will control the throne during the boy's childhood?"

Jinshi offers the opposite arrangement. As Anshi's legal son and an adult royal, he could govern immediately. No Yu-family regency would be needed. This is why the legal mother-son relationship is central rather than decorative: it gives the Empress Dowager faction a candidate whose legitimacy and governing capacity arrive together.

For the child-versus-adult distinction, continue with who could immediately replace the Emperor.

Anshi and Gyokuyou Are Not Simple Personal Enemies

The factional conflict would be easier to understand if the two women openly hated each other, but the novel does not make the relationship that simple. In Volume 3, Gyokuyou allows Anshi to know about a sensitive pregnancy despite her usual caution. Their atmosphere is calm enough to resemble two women with a large age difference speaking as friends rather than a cruel mother-in-law confronting a threatened consort.

Volume 8 still shows that Gyokuyou must remain aware of Anshi's gaze. That is the unavoidable pressure of rank, motherhood, and succession. Personal trust can exist while their public positions generate competing camps.

Anshi can care about the people involved and still be the symbolic center of a faction opposed to the Crown Prince. Gyokuyou can respect Anshi and still understand that Anshi's legal son gives hostile officials another candidate. The political system turns family relationships into instruments even when the women themselves are more restrained.

Canon Boundary

The novels directly support four points: the Empress Dowager faction dislikes the Crown Prince's western blood; it resents the transfer of the heir's position away from Jinshi; it opposes a succession that would make Yuyuan regent; and Jinshi is publicly recognized as Anshi's son and the Emperor's younger brother.

The novels do not, in the cited scenes, show Anshi personally issuing an order to remove or harm Gyokuyou's son. They also do not prove that every member of her faction has the same motive. Blood prejudice, old-house resentment, regency calculations, and support for Jinshi overlap without becoming one perfectly unified plan.

Any stronger statement about Anshi's private intent would go beyond the evidence. The article therefore treats her faction's opposition as canon while keeping her personal position open.

Conclusion: The Legal Son Is the Faction's Alternative

The Empress Dowager faction would resist Gyokuyou's son inheriting the throne because his accession would not merely crown a child. It would elevate a visibly western-connected heir, empower Yuyuan as regent, and secure the rise of the Yu family.

Jinshi changes that calculation because he is Anshi's legal son in the public order. He is an adult, he previously held the heir's position, and he can govern without allowing another maternal clan to rule through a child. Even a reluctant candidate can become a powerful factional symbol.

The tragedy is that this political logic does not require Anshi and Gyokuyou to hate each other. Their personal restraint cannot stop the court from turning son, grandson, bloodline, and motherhood into rival claims on the future.

FAQ

Does Anshi personally oppose Gyokuyou's son?

The cited chapters do not show Anshi openly declaring personal opposition. They identify an Empress Dowager faction that opposes or distrusts the Crown Prince.

Is Jinshi legally Anshi's son?

Yes. Under the court's official family record, Jinshi is recognized as Anshi's son and the Emperor's younger brother, even though the hidden biological truth is different.

Why would the Empress Dowager faction prefer Jinshi?

He is an adult royal, can govern without a regent, spent years in the heir's position, and belongs to Anshi's public family line.

Why does Yuyuan matter?

If the under-five Crown Prince inherited immediately, Yuyuan would likely become regent. That would place practical state power in Gyokuyou's natal family.

Is western blood the only reason for opposition?

No. It is the stated public prejudice, but control of the regency, resentment toward the Yu family's rise, and prior support for Jinshi are equally important.

Are Anshi and Gyokuyou enemies?

Not in a simple personal sense. Their positions create factional pressure, but Volume 3 also presents a cordial and comparatively trusting interaction between them.