There can some… confusion regarding the musical instruments here, and I’m afraid it’s not always clear what exactly is being played. Two chapters ago, the Prince asked for a “qin”, “Court of State Ceremonial” - was in charge of receiving foreign dignitaries by the court; state funerals and other rituals. Roughly on the same organizational level as the Dali Court (Court of Judicial Review).

“Hostel for Tributary Envoys” - responsible for greeting foreign envoys, organizing their audiences with the court, handling gifts, etc. In this era, I believe, it was a unit of the Secretariat, but generally with ties to the Court of State Ceremonial for obvious reasons.

Yes, there are two government agencies responsible for roughly the same thing. That happens surprisingly a lot - same as there are three agencies responsible for judiciary affairs, all three in different branches of the government.

“Lin Da” - after much deliberation, I decided against styling it as “Linda”. I tried looking up any additional details of the name (like if it’s a transcription of his real - Roman - name or just a name given to him by Golden Mask or what), but there was nothing. Just some fans making fun of him being called Linda in the comments of the original post of this chapter, lol.