Emperor I like the background story of your story, but it is similar to my first story about Quintus and the empire. It is not very descriptive and doesn't have as much of an affect on my. I think it has potential and could definately be very gripping, but you should try ot add more description and weed out some of your errors. I like to use a decent spell and grammar checker to help me get rid of distracting errors, this will help the overall flow of the piece. I like the idea of the son leading the people and being torn over the war, but I think you should try to give it more depth and flavor.
To set the record straight on Kenshin: He most likely died of stomach or liver cancer. He was unable to eat solid food in the month or so preceding his illness and was having trouble walking. His death was most likely not a ninja attack, as there are no confirmed assassinations that I can come across and he was very sick. He did die on the throne. As to the source of his cancer it was most likely his hard drinking.