📖 The Mandarin of Cathay 🌏

The Fables of Power – Old grudges, new costumes, timeless quarrels

📖 The Mandarin of Cathay 🌏

✍️ Introduction

Far to the East lived a Mandarin, calm as still water and patient as the rising tide. To his own people he was strict, demanding loyalty and obedience, even as he brought them wealth and prosperity. To the world, he spoke of harmony and partnership, of trade and friendship — yet every voyage ended with more in his coffers than when he set sail.

🎭 “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

— Sun Tzu

🪄 The Tale

The Mandarin sailed the seas with fleets of junks and scrolls of treaties. Wherever the winds carried him, he promised “peaceful partnership” and “shared prosperity.” His words were silk, his smile serene, and his patience unending.

To small kingdoms he offered gifts — bridges, ports, and roads paved with gold. The villagers cheered as markets bustled and ships arrived. But they did not see that the bridges bore his seal, the ports flew his banner, and the roads all led back to his palace.

At home, he was no gentler. He ruled with a mind of steel, rewarding loyalty with fortune, punishing dissent with silence. The people prospered, but under his watchful gaze — for prosperity was not freedom, but another bond.

The Western merchants, once masters of the sea, found their sails drooping and their ships aging, while the Mandarin’s fleets grew larger and swifter. He did not fight storms with swords or cannons, but with patience, knowing the east wind would one day prevail over the west.

And so he waited, his empire expanding not by conquest but by contract, not with iron but with silk. For he knew that those who depend on his gifts would one day find themselves bound not by chains of steel, but by threads of debt too fine to cut, and too strong to break.

⚖️ Moral of the Tale

Silk may bind more tightly than iron.

🎭 Closing Line

The stage of the world is never empty. The next fable is already being written…

✡️ Next Fable Preview

The Prophet of the Corridors of Power
In the holy land, a ruler wraps himself in prophecy, mistaking mirrors for divine light and ambition for revelation.

📌 Blog Excerpt

The Mandarin of Cathay sails the seas with promises of partnership and prosperity. But every bridge, port, and road bears his seal — and every silken gift binds those who accept it closer to his throne. Strict at home and patient abroad, he rules with both steel and silk, reminding the world that not every gift is free.

WJJH, September 2025