Apothecary Diaries 2x20 | Full Length Reaction

I think Jinshi (In his actual role of crown prince/moon prince) is just the head of the army, second to the Emperor. I'm sure the Emperor will be notified about all this going on, and Jinshi himself probably has to formally request the use of the army, but I don't think you bother the Emperor until it gets to the point where he absolutely needs to be involved. He's going to be pretty busy and including him in any sort of vassal clan business before it's a sure thing is probably very politically messy. There's also probably a lot of tradition and bureaucracy to all of this that we don't see. Also, I think the situation in Shenmei's room was more of an opium den situation. Keeping people drugged so they're easy to control and less of a brothel thing. Though I have to imagine sex is some part of it.

25:30 I'm glad that you clocked that Loulan loves her sister deeply, so much so that she used her sister's name as her fake "maid" name, because she loves her deeply. I love that Dee and Meesh love Loulan's character arc, a lot of people look at Loulan as a betrayer, and while she did lie about a lot of things and is involved with a lot of shady things, i love that our favorite reactor girls are seeing under the hood of Loulan's character, and Meesh said it in the last episode that "loulan" seems more like a fake persona (and we're confirmed here that it's a puppet persona) while "shisui" the bug girl is Loulan getting the opportunity to be herself for the first time when she befriended maomao and shaolan in the court yard. But when shenmei is around, Loulan has to be 'Loulan' and suirei has to be her "maid" instead of them being sisters, which is heart breaking. Everyone's in this grey area of what they can do vs what they must do, and trying to survive in this political rebellion scheme that is being brought to our attention. Now we know that allllllllllllllll the previous mysteries that maomao solved, were part of this big elaborate scheme against the palace, including the attempted murders and attempts at killing off the rear palace courtesans and the abortion drugs etc, it's all a coup to flip the rear palace (and the imperial palace) on top of its head for reasons that aren't explained yet, but it's ALL connected. Loulan is arguably one of my favorite characters, top 5, in all of anime, because of how subtle yet impactful her character arc is as a secondary non-main protagonist character.

23:00 So basically, the Forbidden Army is under the authority of the imperial family, with the Emperor ultimately at the top of that chain. They have strong evidence that Shishou's clan is preparing for insurrection, but the problem is politics and optics. Shishou isn't some random provincial lord: he's been a loyal retainer and high-ranking official of the imperial family for decades, going back at least to the previous Emperor's reign. We even hear Shishou's name during Anshi's younger flashbacks, so he's been around for a LONG time. His clan also has historical ties to the imperial family going all the way back to the Mother Royal's era. So even with evidence of a planned rebellion, having the Emperor immediately send the Forbidden Army against one of his own major clans before they openly rebel is politically dangerous. Lakan also has an obvious personal bias: his daughter was kidnapped and is being held in Shishou's territory. Even if Lakan is completely correct, the Emperor can't necessarily base an enormous military action purely on Lakan saying, "Trust me, we need to attack NOW." And Lakan doesn't have time for that kind of political caution. He's convinced the rebellion is coming soon—the preparations have apparently been going on for years, and the agricultural season is now over, which means the timing for military action is approaching. Meanwhile, Maomao has been kidnapped and held there for weeks. The longer she remains there, the greater the chance that something happens to her, especially once her usefulness to them runs out. That's why going through Jinshi makes sense. Lakan has access to him, knows Jinshi cares deeply about Maomao, and knows Jinshi has something Lakan himself doesn't: imperial blood and the political authority that comes with it. Essentially, Lakan is pushing Jinshi to stop hiding behind his "Jinshi" identity and act as the Moon Prince. Instead of forcing the Emperor to personally take all the political responsibility for ordering a preemptive attack against a historically loyal clan, Jinshi can step forward and effectively say, "The threat is real. I will take responsibility for acting on it." That changes the political risk calculation enormously. Lakan isn't really going to Jinshi because the Emperor lacks the power to mobilize the Forbidden Army; he's going to Jinshi because Jinshi gives him the fastest path to turning evidence of a coming rebellion into immediate military action, without getting trapped in potentially lengthy political deliberations while Maomao's life is on the clock.