Why did Ou Ki lie about Shou Bou Kun’s death?

Kingdom season 1 is full of twists, and several characters’ intentions seem unclear to me. One such character is Ou Ki (Wang Yi). In the series, he presented a head to the court and lied that it was Shou Bou Kun’s (Lord Changwen’s). Why did he do so? What were his true motives?

Ou Ki lied about Shou Bou Kun’s death for two reasons. One was for a reward, and the other was his faithfulness towards King Zhao. Ou Ki wanted to see why Shou Bou Kun was backing Ying Zheng and if the young king was truly worthy.

There are two important scenes that indicate this. The first one was when Sei Kyou ordered his minister to bring forth all people from Shou Bou Kun’s land. Ou Ki denies them the permission do so.

This is because he acquired controlling over Shou Bou Kun’s land and wouldn’t let Sei Kyou slaughter the people living there.

This was the first indication of how Ou Ki did it for power and wealth. Until this point in season 1, he was called the strangest bird to have flown across the Kingdom of Qin. Nobody ever understood who he was and the motives behind his actions.

All of this depicted the great General in a negative light. However, this changed when the mountain tribes and Shou Bou Kun’s men stormed the capital city of Qin.

As the battle progressed, Ou Ki had his eyes on everything that was going on. Once he realized that Ei Sei was going to win, he interrupted the fight and brought things to an abrupt halt.

He asked what kind of a king Ei Sei wanted to become and warned him that a wrong answer would result in his instant death. Before we heard the ambitious to-be king speak, the show cut to a flashback scene.

In it, we saw an old King Zhao sitting at the edge of a mountain as General Ou Ki and Shou Bou Kun stood behind him. Both of them looked pretty young, so it was evident that this had happened long ago.

In a short conversation, it was revealed that Ou Ki was an ardent follower of King Zhao. Without him, he wouldn’t march into battles for anyone else. To him, he was one of the greatest rulers China had ever seen, and rightly so. He was the only one in history to have united all the six states before they broke apart.

This scene showed that Ou Ki was not an evil person but just someone who didn’t bow down to the unworthy. To him, Sei Kyou was not worthy of being a king. After all, his mindset was pretty shallow. However, Ou Ki didn’t know much about Ei Sei.

He wanted to see why Shou Bou Kun was backing this teenager, and when the time was right, he sought answers. We cut back to the present, where Ei Sei said, he wanted to be the king who could unite the six states into one kingdom.

He even went on to tell how King Zhao did a fine job but made a few mistakes in his long journey. Ei Sei, with absolute determination, declared that he would rectify them.

Although Ou Ki wasn’t convinced, he realized that only time would tell if Ei Sei was a worthy king, For this, he had to give Ei Sei time and meanwhile keep an eye on his actions. This is why Ou Ki lied about Shou Bou Kun’s death and didn’t stand in Ei Sei’s way.

After this incident, the rebellion got over and Ei Sei took over the throne. However, Ou Ki was nowhere to be seen. After all, he still didn’t bow to the new king. Will he ever find him worthy enough? I guess you just have to watch the show to find out.

About Kingdom

Kingdom is a Japanese seinen manga series written and illustrated by Yasuhisa Hara.

The manga provides a fictionalised account of the Warring States period primarily through the experiences of the war orphan Xin and his comrades.

In the story, Xin fights to become the most significant general under the heavens, and in doing so, unifying China for the first time in history.