Velvet Shade double agent whose family was massacred during Zhao Kuangyin's rise — architect of the Imperial Palace treasury heist and the Confinement Tower illusion.
Han Wei is the emotional engine of the Throne and Tempest Lost Chapter. Two years before the protagonist reaches Kaifeng, General Han — one of Zhao Kuangyin's sworn brothers — refused to accept the new Song regime. General Wang acted without orders and slaughtered Han's entire household. Only Han Wei survived.
He left home, joined the Velvet Shade spy network serving Southern Tang, and secretly fed intelligence back to the northern homeland — a double agent inside the organisation that had helped plan Zhao Kuangyin's Chenqiao Mutiny. When he learned of the coup in advance he wrote a warning letter to his father; it changed nothing. He returned to find his family dead and Zhao Kuangyin honouring General Han with a grand public funeral while never seriously punishing General Wang.
For two years Han Wei spread rumours that the emperor hoarded a secret treasury while the people starved. The vault was bait; the thieves were a distraction; his true goal was assassination. At the imperial banquet he plays the flute and pulls everyone into the Confinement Tower — a three-floor illusion where each level accuses Zhao Kuangyin of tyranny. [spoiler]The protagonist dismantles each floor with evidence from the real treasury visit. In the final layer Han Wei disguises himself as chief minister and debates Zhao Kuangyin face to face, learning the emperor views General Wang as a product of a broken system and seeks order that prevents future Han Weis. He cannot strike — the possibility of peace outweighs revenge — and is arrested.[/spoiler]
