Responses
Yeah I get the feeling that the empress did some political move that got her killed or imprisoned or some shit. And that the empress is related to Shuli and in order to quell rebellion from those wanting to use the Empress' relatives as spear heads for their cou, Johannes took the initiative by marrying Shuli and thus putting her and probably more importantly her relatives, on the Emperor's side
Alright. Why does the Shuli resemble the Late Empress? Who knows, certainly not me. But what I do think as to the reason why Shuli was chosen as Johannes' bride is because she looks like the late empress. Johannes somehow knew that his brothers and sister are not to be trusted with his family after he's gone so he forced the Royal fam to intercede and help Shuli (bcs Johannes is a close friend of the emperor and he most likely knew something about the late empress). I mean, why else did he need to get a teen bride who is not at all related to their family, when he can just appoint one of his bros and/or sistah as the regent for Jeremy? If I'm right, kudos to him bcs he did the right thing.