I am translating something into English, and I'm having trouble finding an equivalent for the word below:

The paragraph talks about a ruler who organized the military, administration etc. Now, the following sentence is that he controlled all the abovementioned links-a ring or loop in a chain ( as the author calls them; this is used figuratively, to imply some components connected with each other, the "components" of his state apparatus mentioned above) through his most trusted people.

Now, I can't find a proper word that conveys the idea of the original word (literally translated as link). I know that there will be some loss in translation, but if there is a word/expression you can think of, please let me know.