If emperors of olden times visited a kingdom in their empire, did their authority and rule of word supersede that of said king?

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Say a emperoror decides to visit a kingdom and orders the king to vacate their throne and allow the emperor to sit upon it. for as long as he was in the kingdom’s capital Would the king be bound to listen to his “king”? Could the emperor, as the king’s ruler, overrule any of the king’s rulings as per his wish? Say the king wanted to avoid war with a neighboring country but the emperor wanted it, who would the people listen to?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Potentially yes, but the king might later choose to switch allegiance to another emperor

Essentially all this is politics. There’s nobody with higher authority to enforce the rules but if the person in charge pushes things too far he’ll lose the support of the vassal king.

If you’re Ghengis Khan, for example, you can probably get away with anything and destroy those who disobey. A less powerful emperor who needs the genuine support of the empire will tread more gently because anything that might humiliate the king might mean they take the other side if there’s an uprising.

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