Here's a question:

Since a silly child with a sense of honor cannot become a qualified family heir, how can the son of a family member be influenced by the mainstream culture and have the necessary wisdom and political literacy of a lord?

In fact, there is only one answer, which is to rely on your father's words and deeds!

Compared with the mainstream values that can be widely promoted, the two things of "wisdom and political literacy" are often extremely subtle, a bit similar to what the Chinese call "strategy" and "power technique", which are the real code of conduct that the parents and children of the world need to hide under the glossy robe of honor.

This is something that cannot be learned by children who are thrown into other people's homes as attendants, and in fact can only rely on oral transmission between father and son.

Therefore, it can be seen that most of the second sons are sent to others as adopted sons, and they are trained to be loyal and diligent knights who are strict with themselves in other people's castles.

The eldest son of the family will always be left by his father - unless his father dies or loses power.

Samwell once described his "heir education" as a child.

The experiences of Robert and Ned provide a better footnote to the difference between the education of the eldest and second sons.

Although they were born in the same year and were adopted sons to Jon Sr., Ned came to the Vale at the age of eight—the standard age for second sons to begin serving as squires;

Robert, on the other hand, came to the Eagle's Nest when he was fifteen years old, after both his parents died in a shipwreck.

He was adopted by Jon Arryn as the "Duke of Storm's End" because the "heir education" had to be taken over by a true nobleman.

In the first volume, Robert and Ned have an argument over the education of Jon Sr.'s son, Robert Jr., who wants to give the bear child to his father-in-law, Tywin, to raise - "Jon has no brothers, and only such a son, how can I let a woman raise him alone?" ”

Although Ned strongly opposed the motion, he did not think it was a good idea to leave the child to Lysa, and he proposed an alternative for him to adopt his nephew instead.

But in any case, at least both agreed that one duke could not be longer than a woman's hand, which shows that this was a general consensus in the society at the time.

After the outbreak of the Usurper War, Ned also became the Duke of Winterfell due to the death of his father and brother, but it was Robert who eventually became the king, and of course Robert was a distant relative of the Dragon family.

But behind Robert's intransigence and Ned's willingness to give in, the deeper reason is that the two have received very different educations since childhood—even if they have the same adoptive father.

This is somewhat similar to Confucius's advocacy of "kings and ministers, fathers and sons", and Nedda was trained from the age of eight as Brandon's future right-hand man and pioneer.

Had it not been for the accident, he would be to Brandon what Kavon is to Tywin, except that in the end he would have been to Robert.

And Robert was born to be a duke!

The difference in enlightenment education determines the difference between the two in terms of vision, courage, ability, and charm, and also shows that in the unspoken rules of Westeros' aristocratic society, the eldest son and the second son were originally to be cultivated into completely different species!

The old guys in Storm's Rest naturally habitually use the second son template when evaluating Lan Li, and Lan Li is obviously not a good embryo to assist his brother like Ned.

is also a young son, Lan Li's skillful "little rose" is his most stark contrast.

Robert said of Loras, the Knight of the Hundred Flowers:

"Anyone would be proud to have such a son."

And Lan Li not only has a bad sense of responsibility, but his martial arts are too ordinary, and these two points alone are enough to make Donna Noi look down on him.

And once you see Lan Li as a "firstborn" who is qualified to sit on the throne, his image is immediately very different.

The other flashes of brilliance in Lan Li—such as ambition, charisma, scheming, and power tricks—were rarely seen by the likes of the old blacksmith, or if they were, they were selectively ignored by Donner.

For those merits, far from being a plus for the second and youngest sons, can become unstable factors that lead to calamity.

One day in the year 285 of the conquest, Lan Li, who was not yet seven years old (or had just turned over), woke up to the news that his eldest brother Robert had ascended to the Iron Throne and that he had become the Duke of Storm's End.

At that time, Lan Li was even smaller than Bran at the beginning of the book.

As the youngest son of the family, Lan Li's experience was so special that he was dramatically canonized as a duke before he could receive the orthodox second son education.

This is the primary reason why he developed the "firstborn personality".

Just as the father-son relationship between Aerys and Rhaegar is more akin to "eldest brother and younger brother", Rhaegar who is the eldest son himself is suppressed by his father, who is too young and immature, shows the character traits of the second son to a certain extent - this is the so-called "father is like eldest brother".

The relationship between Robert and Lan Li is the opposite, showing another school of "elder brother like father" trait that we are more familiar with.

You know, Robert was fifteen years older than Lance, and Aerys was only sixteen years older than Rhaeggar.

On the other hand, Lan Li's inheritance of Storm's Rest from Robert is also secretly in line with their relationship of "being called brothers, but in fact like father and son".

In some sibling groups with an age gap of more than 10 years, we often find that the younger brother's personality does not fully fit the standard template of the second son.

Compared to the second sons, who are only two or three years old or three or five years apart from their eldest brother, their personalities are more outgoing, more confident, and less self-disciplined.

Because they were born late, they were not constantly compared to their radiant older brother in their teenage years—and thus avoided becoming "the boy who stood in the cold shadows forever and watched the sun shine on his brother" like Stannis;

Similarly, due to the large age gap, they do not need to be deliberately cultivated to be the right-hand man and pioneer of the future of the elder brother;

When they reach the age of ten, the eldest brother has often become famous, married and had children, the so-called "raising children knows the kindness of their parents", at this time they not only know how to love their children, but also know how to fulfill the obligation to take care of their little brothers on behalf of their parents.

It's like when Bran falls from a building and Caitlyn goes into a frenzy, Robb takes care of Riken, who is eleven years younger than him.

In general, the younger brother in this group is more like the eldest brother's son than the brother.

The influence that the eldest brother inflicted on them, the element of care and pampering clearly dominated, and the element of driving and suppressing was much less.

Prince Oberon of Dorne is another example of the concept of "elder brother as father".

He is ten years younger than his eldest brother Dolang, so he doesn't need to say anything, and everyone knows how different there is between a second son like Red Viper and a second son like Ned, Stannis, Kaifeng, and Blackfish.

To put it bluntly, the polarization of the evaluation of Lanli is only due to the different evaluation templates adopted by the two sides.

This is another excellent example of the natural division between the eldest and second sons of Westeros.

If Confucianism preaches "kings and ministers, fathers and sons", then similarly, an important etiquette that maintained the aristocratic society of Westeros was "brother brother, brother brother"!

From this, we can also see why the War of the Five Kings came about!

Who started the "War of the Five Kings"?

On the surface, it's Cersei and Joffrey's mother and son.

The evil Cersei and the enraged Joffrey arrest Ned Stark regardless of the interests of the Seven Kingdoms, leading the North to rebel against the Iron Throne.

But from Cersei, Joffrey's point of view, they are entirely self-defense.

If they don't, they will lose their right to the throne and possibly their lives.

Upon learning of the coup d'état in King's Landing, Stannis took the lead in raising his army. Did Stannis detonate the War of the Five Kings?

No, Cersei's mother-son coup was in the front, Stannis was attacking in the back, and Stannis was also on the defensive side.

Ned Stark is directly responsible for the outbreak of the War of the Five Kings, but Ned subjectively does not want the war to happen, and his problem is that his skill level cannot control the overall situation.

Throughout the Battle of the Five Kings, most of the participants were passively involved, but they did not expect that a full-scale war would ensue.

There is only one scheming Tywin, the Duke, who has been planning for a long time and is the initiator of the War of the Five Kings.

As early as Robert was alive and Ned was still king, the western army led by Moshan, Amori, and others attacked the river in this massive military campaign.

Tywin completely ignored the Iron Throne and the face of the Lord of Horsttury, and without even a diplomatic note, he directly blossomed all over the hinterland of the Seven Kingdoms, turning the fertile fields around Harrenhal, hundreds of miles away, into a desolate wasteland.

According to Duke Tywin, the Westside Army's military operations were solely in retaliation for Caitlin Tully's recent arrest of Tyrion Lannis in the River.

Before his son was rescued, he rushed to the kidnappers to take revenge.

It's not to save his son, it's to feel that his son has lived too long.

But the Duke of Tywin said that his son's life did not matter.

It is important that "Lan and Nice have special debts that must be repaid".

Tywin isn't Robb, he's not Joffrey, he's the biggest conspirator on the right.

His plundering of the land between the rivers was by no means a whim, nor was it just to vent his emotions for his son's arrest.

He had long wanted the Seven Kingdoms to break out into war and revisit Westeros, and Caitlin's rash move gave Duke Tywin a chance to send troops.

Even after Robert's death and Ned's capture, Duke Tywin was able to travel to King's Landing, take control of Mother Cersei and her son, and negotiate to prevent the outbreak of all-out war.

However, instead of doing this, Tywin personally traveled to the Riverroom to engage Robb militarily, and there was only one answer - Tywin wanted a war and solve his problems in the war.

In fact, throughout Tywin's life, you will find that he was by no means a warmonger, but was accustomed to solving problems by political and intrigue means.

Even if you have to go to war, find the right moment to maximize the benefits of Castle Rock

During the rebellion, the wolf clan, eagle clan, fish clan, and deer clan in the north raised a righteous banner that was inseparable from the Iron Throne, while the Rose Clan and Martell family in the south supported the Mad King and fought side by side with the Iron Throne.

Only the Westlands led by Duke Tywin would sit idly by, and when the Battle of Trident was over and the balance of victory was completely tilted in Robert's favor, Tywin preemptively opened the gates of King's Landing, and used the corpses of the Mad King, Rhaegar's wife and children to gain a foothold in front of the new king.

As a young man, Tywin was once a brilliant military strategist, famous in Westeros.

However, as he got older, fighting war had long since become Tywin's shortcoming.

In the fifth year of Robert's reign, even the pirates of the Iron Islands dared to go to Lannisport to loot.

Tywin could not protect the West, so he turned to Robert and Ned for help and had the Iron Throne send troops to quell the rebellion.

Duke Tywin's military performance in the Battle of the Five Kings was even more surprising, with the Western Army being defeated by the Northern Army on several occasions.

The Battle of Camp and the Battle of the Whispering Forest catapulted Robb to fame as a rising new general.

Tywin's political interests are achieved by joining forces with Lianheng and buying people's hearts.

By rebelling against DeVre and Luce Burton, co-opting the Ross family, and tying up the Eagle family, he finally made himself invincible.

In Tywin's opinion, getting rid of Robb and Caitlin through a bloody wedding is far more cost-effective than destroying the Northern army on the battlefield.

Duke Tywin, who is not good at fighting, has to solve the problem through war, and it can only be said that the old man is in a hurry.

In the early days of Robert's reign, there was a honeymoon period between the lion family, the deer family, and the wolf family.

Tywin betrothed his daughter Cersei to Robert, who and Ned helped Tywin quell the Iron Islands rebellion, and the monarch and his courtiers got along very well.

But harmony between politicians has always been to take advantage of each other, and at the celebration of the Iron Islands in Pingding, Robert quietly pulled the old man aside, and shyly expressed to Tywin that he wanted to borrow money.

The king himself borrowed money, and the Duke of Tywin agreed very happily that he did not need any guarantee, and the West soon sent 1 million gold dragons to King's Landing for Robert to squander.

However, Robert's desire was a bottomless pit, and in just ten years, the Iron Throne had borrowed 3 million gold dragons from the West, which was far greater than the country's annual revenue.

If this momentum continues, the king will not only not pay off Tywin's arrears, but will also have to continue to give blood transfusions to his father-in-law.

In Littlefinger's currency war, the harm of Robert's arrears to the finances of the Seven Nations is recounted.

With the fiscal deficit growing, Robert did not think about how to save money, but instead found Littlefinger, borrowed money from the Iron Vault, and exploited the Seven Kingdoms by controlling the exchange rate, making the nobility and the common people miserable.

In Littlefinger's currency war, only the Queen of Thorns of the Rose family responded in time, ensuring the economic prosperity of the High Court through the old currency trade, and the 3 million gold dragons in the Westlands ruled by Duke Tywin was an astronomical amount, almost emptying the small coffers of the West.

In the past, the reason why Duke Tywin dared to lend to Robert was because Castle Rock was surrounded by gold mines, which had been producing gold for thousands of years, and as long as the gold mined was continuous, the finances of the West would not be too problematic.

However, the house leak happened to rain overnight, and the Kaiyan City Gold Mine, which was highly anticipated by Duke Tywin, suddenly faced resource depletion before the main drama began, and several mine managers reported to Tywin that the gold in the old mine had been mined, and the new mine had nothing to gain.

This matter is a top secret in the West, and only a few people know about it, and Tywin fears that if it spreads, it will cause panic in the West, allowing the old Lannisters to take advantage of it, and then trigger a full-blown political and economic crisis.