*snerk* But that's the fun of historical fiction/fantasy! You get to throw in all the worldbuilding tropes! And to be entirely fair, you don't have to go all the way back to Qin: the implicit mission to unite China in a time of division runs powerfully through any telling of Chinese history, so it fits perfectly into the pseudo-Northern/Southern courts era that Hai Yan uses.

That's actually one of my favorite things about the show, is how good her sense of where she can bend history and where she can't. Much more of a Guy Gavriel Kay medieval than a Robert Jordan one.

I look forward to seeing Meng and Jingrui interact!