Chapter 563: The Memorial on the Root Flourishing and the Leaves Being Boundless and Prosperous

The treaty that the Great Ming required Oda Nobunaga to sign was extremely harsh.

Each of the six items was fatal to Japan: the unlimited right to declare war in the three chapters and seventeen articles of the *Prohibition of Pirates*, the actual garrison of the Great Ming navy, the list of prohibited goods, the recognition of the legitimacy of the Nagasaki Governor's Office, the cession of Sakai, and the 300,000 silver annual military pay. If the Qing saw such a treaty, they would also be blacked out!

But Oda Nobunaga, from pursuing the "man of the world" to becoming the Shogun of the Azuchi Shogunate, to being assassinated and having his heart shaken, to his recent defeat in Osaka Bay, left Oda Nobunaga with no choice. He had to consider survival first. Only by living could he talk about the future. This was also why Oichi said to the Emperor: Only the Central Plains need to be responsible for the historical process, and Oda Nobunaga simply did not have this concept.

The meat-eaters at the top of the Central Plains must be responsible for the historical process. This is a typical characteristic of the Central Plains, because "when the granary is full, one knows ritual and righteousness, and when clothing and food are sufficient, one knows honor and disgrace." Without rich material, there is no culture, without culture there is no civilization, and without a mature civilization, there is no need to be responsible for the historical process, because living from hand to mouth is the norm.

Oda Nobunaga must find a way to survive. No matter how harsh the Great Ming's conditions were, he had to agree to them first. Only by using the Great Ming's influence to complete his own turn and complete the cohesion of people's hearts could he fight. When the country lost its great trust and people's hearts were shaken, using force was equivalent to sending himself to the guillotine. Defeat would mean death, internal strife would mean death, and assassination by ambitious people would also mean death.

Oda Nobunaga had no choice.

Sanyuniangzi was very clear about this treaty, which was known as the "Seventeen Articles" by the people and was making a lot of noise, because the Great Ming's *Di Bao*, *Min Bao*, and many miscellaneous newspapers had all published the content of the treaty, especially explaining in great detail why each article was done so. For example, the garrison was to resist Japanese pirates on the spot, rather than waiting for the Japanese pirates to poison the southeast before resisting, and the military pay would not be transported back to the capital, but would remain in the Nagasaki Regional Military Commissioner's Office to reward the soldiers who traveled far, etc.

After this treaty was formulated, it was made public, and the reasons for each article were explained very clearly.

Sanyuniangzi had lingering fears. When the Emperor was a child, Sanyuniangzi felt that this child was vengeful. Now she had truly gained knowledge. He was simply iron-hearted! Sanyuniangzi was very glad that the Northern Barbarians could reconcile with the Great Ming. It was truly a blessing!

Zhu Zhu Yijun's kindness to the grassland was actually based on reality. After all, they were all eating from the same pot. Zhu Di, the emperor who won the world on horseback, personally entered and exited the grassland five times, wearing armor and holding weapons, but in the end, he could not permanently clear the desert. Only twenty-four years later, the Oirat people came back. In order not to repeat the same mistakes, the Great Ming's focus was still on opening up the ocean, and it could only be so.

The Japanese were different. The Japanese were short, and at a glance, they were not of his own race and must have different hearts.

Zhu Zhu Yijun watched Li Li Yashi, who was wearing a Confucian robe, walk into the Zhao Wenhua Hall. Li Li Yashi looked around curiously. This was the power center of the Great Ming Empire. How could Li Li Yashi not be curious? All the new policies of the Emperor Wanli Reform came from here.

"Your subject pays respects to Your Majesty. May Your Majesty be safe." Li Li Yashi performed the great ritual of five bows and three kowtows and paid respects loudly.

Zhu Zhu Yijun said with a smile: "Stand up. Last time the Western envoys had an audience, you didn't come, but now you are here to join in the fun. What kind of reason is this?"

"Your subject is both the special envoy of His Highness Philip and an official of the Great Ming. I must learn to avoid suspicion," Li Li Yashi stood up and explained with a smile why he did not have an audience with the Western envoys. Avoiding suspicion was inevitable. Li Li Yashi still had to live in the Great Ming.

Returning was impossible. He broke his vow of lifelong celibacy to serve God. If he returned to the West, he would be burned alive as a heretic on the stake.

The Great Ming was truly too polite to heretics. Clearly, the Lama temples on the grassland had been defined as heretics by the Great Ming, but they could still return to secular life. The Great Ming Emperor was truly a benevolent person. In the West, this would be a situation of endless death.

"You don't have a national letter to present this time, so why are you here? If you are here to waste Our time, We will lose our temper!" Zhu Zhu Yijun raised an eyebrow and said happily. Wasting the Great Ming Emperor's time, Li Li Yashi would not have any good fruit to eat!

Li Li Yashi shook his head with a smile and said: "Your subject really has a memorial to present. I observe that the Great Ming has unified the universe, its grace flows within the borders, its power controls the six directions, it does not seek to expand its territory but the territory expands itself. It is something that the First Emperor of Qin could not submit and Emperor Wu of Han could not conquer, all entering the map. This is what is called the prosperity of surpassing the Han and Tang dynasties."

"For example, in this western part of Yunnan, the reform of the native chieftain system has been implemented, and the culture has been spread. It has been more than two hundred years. Since then, Yunnan and Guizhou have entered the hinterland of the four directions, and there is no longer a scene of separation. It is something that the Great Han and the prosperous Tang could not reach. Why?"

"Because..."

"Stop! Special Envoy Li, can you not be so literary? You are talking about classical Chinese all the time. Are you going to take the imperial examination! Do you think it is appropriate for you, a Westerner, to be so pedantic?" Zhu Zhu Yijun interrupted Li Li Yashi's endless chatter. This guy had been in the Great Ming for a long time and had used classical Chinese, and it was quite organized. All the good things of the Great Ming had been learned by this red-haired barbarian!

Using classical Chinese to flatter—that was the core skill of the Great Ming literati, and it had all been learned by Li Li Yashi!

Li Li Yashi shook his head with a smile and said: "Your subject is already at this age, so forget it. Being a translator is already satisfying."

"Is Special Envoy Li fifty this year? You look very young," Zhu Zhu Yijun looked at Li Li Yashi's appearance and said with a smile.

"Your subject will be fifty in another 128 months..." Li Li Yashi had a black line on his face! He was just looking a bit old. He was only thirty-nine! What kind of talk, what do you mean he is fifty?! Was it his fault that he looked old? He had looked like this ten years ago!

"Thirty-nine." Zhu Zhu Yijun knew from Feng Bao's slight nod that Li Li Yashi did not deceive the Emperor. He was really thirty-nine.

"The Great Ming surpassing the Han and Tang dynasties, it is not appropriate to talk about it now," Zhu Zhu Yijun looked at the map and said: "We don't even know when We can reopen the Western Regions. Being so arrogant is still too early."

Li Li Yashi said with great certainty: "Your Majesty, your words are wrong. Some time ago, the newly established Gansu Province recruited scholar-officials for the third time, and there were many respondents. It seems that going there is to suffer, but it is also to make meritorious service. In Gansu, promotion is faster than in other places, and there is merit to be taken. The scholar-officials recruited in the first two times only left because of injury and illness, and there were no weaklings who fled back to the hinterland."

"This is the direction of people's hearts. Reopening the Western Regions is not far away."

"That is also true. The Great Ming's Confucian scholars have made Us look at them with new eyes this time," Zhu Zhu Yijun said sincerely.

The Great Ming's base Confucian scholars cried and yelled when they encountered difficulties. They didn't even want to go to Suiyuan, the heartland, to be officials. They looked like they were going to lose their lives. But this time, going to Gansu made Zhu Zhu Yijun extremely surprised. There was not so much noise.

And no one complained that Jiayu Pass was a dilapidated city in the Gobi Desert, nor did anyone think that they were slaves, sold by the Emperor, or exiled to Gansu, nor did they shout that they had sold their freedom and soul for the sake of promotion.

Once the Western Regions are reopened, it will be a splash of merit.

The Great Ming's reopening of the Western Regions had been talked about from the Emperor Hongwu era to the Emperor Wanli era, but it had never been realized. Such a chance to leave a name in history and wave one's arms at the forefront of history, the Confucian scholars had exerted their subjective initiative to do things.

Li Li Yashi said with great certainty: "Your Majesty, the Great Ming's imperial transformation of the western part of Yunnan is extremely successful. Why did the Great Ming do better than the Han and Tang dynasties in Yunnan? In fact, it adopted the good rules of the feudal system on the top and the county system on the bottom. With feudalism, virtue is thick; with counties, the system is superior. Looking up and down for a thousand years, virtue and beauty are exhausted, and the merit and virtue are prosperous. It is something that has never been seen since the birth of the people!"

"All look up

"Stop. If you keep this up, I will have you thrown outside the Meridian Gate for a bastinado," Zhu Zhu Yijun signaled for Li Li Yashi to tone it down; it was truly too intense. Li Li Yashi didn't feel awkward, but Zhu Zhu Yijun, the one being praised, felt so embarrassed he could have clawed out a Tonghe Palace. The main thing was that Li Li Yashi, with the face of a red-haired barbarian, was being so pedantic—it was truly incongruous.

"Very well, where was I? Ah, it is all His Majesty's merit." Li Li Yashi was concise and, after pondering for a moment, said, "I will speak plainly: the root cause can be summed up in eight characters: 'lush branches and leaves, a matter of course.'"

"Having many people is good; having many people means great strength."

"This time, the Duke of Qian, Mu Mu Changzuo, was played by the raw and cooked Miao, and was almost invaded right at his doorstep! What did the Duke of Qian rely on to repel the thieves? He relied on the Han army, on the military colonies and garrisons, and on the support of the Sichuan Regional Commander Liu Ting. Therefore, the title of my memorial today is 'Memorial on the Root Flourishing and the Branches Being Boundless and Peaceful'."

Li Li Yashi presented his memorial to the throne; this was also his first memorial in classical Chinese, and he had written it for a long time.

Zhu Zhu Yijun opened it and read for a long time; there were no problems with the wording, and Li Li Yashi's entry point was the fall of Rome.

After Rome fell, all sorts of monsters and demons—the Holy Roman Empire, the Green Radishes, and the Three Romes—all crawled out. After Rome fell, Rome was everywhere. If the Great Ming civilization were to be severed, then the barbarians and small nations surrounding the Great Ming would all misappropriate the name and claim to be the legitimate successors of China.

And the fall of Rome was due to the sharp decline in the main population, that is, the Roman population, which ultimately led to the complete demise of Rome.

There are many opinions on the fall of Rome, each with its own logic, but Li Li Yashi believes that once the Romans were gone, Rome naturally perished.

"Your Majesty, it is just like this vast Hall of Literary Brilliance; the ones bearing the weight are the pillars, and the main population is these great pillars. Once these pillars fall, the house collapses." Li Li Yashi fully narrated his memorial.

"Is Philip's current predicament sudden? No, there were actually signs long ago. After Philip found the rich silver mines in Peru, the largest silver mines in the world, Spain changed. After massive amounts of silver flowed in, seduced by money, people began to universally discriminate against those craftsmen working hard in workshops and those herdsmen exposed to wind and rain in the pastures."

"This trend began to spread rapidly throughout Spain. People no longer wanted to work steadily; they only thought of becoming wealthy overnight and becoming landlords. England was tucked away in a corner; they originally had no handicraft workshops at all and lived by exporting wool every year because even if they made woolen cloth, they couldn't sell it."

"The woolen business was controlled by Spain. England couldn't even sell its goods, so how could it talk about accumulating wealth?"

"It was precisely this trend in Spain where everyone was impractical and everyone wanted to be a landlord that caused Spain's handicraft industry to rapidly wither and its scale to shrink daily, which gave England its opportunity."

"Therefore, today's fruit is yesterday's cause; His Highness Philip can only reap what he has sown."

"Scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants are the four pillars of the state."

What Li Li Yashi was talking about was not that the people are the foundation of the state, but the alienation of people by money, the alienation of the spirit, and the alienation of society.

Zhu Zhu Yijun flipped through Li Li Yashi's memorial again and said with great certainty, "You and Li Zhi must have a lot to talk about. He is currently studying the alienation of people by power and the alienation of people by money."

The topic shifted from light to serious. As a translator for the Court of Diplomatic Reception, Li Li Yashi ate the Great Ming's imperial grain. Besides translating Western documents, he also had to actively offer advice and suggestions to shine and heat for the Great Ming's resurgence. He talked about the phenomenon in Spain, hoping that His Majesty would be vigilant and not let such things happen.

Taking history as a mirror, one can know the rise and fall.

Li Li Yashi elaborated in detail on the arguments and evidence of his memorial, especially regarding the fall of the Roman Empire, which Li Li Yashi sincerely felt was a pity. Moreover, the entire West no longer had the foundation for a lightning return; Rome had truly perished.

And Li Li Yashi used the changes in Spain's handicraft industry to expound on his thoughts on Spain.

"Your Majesty, in fact, His Highness Philip has truly done his best. He wants to defeat England; he wants to prevent silver from piling up in Spain and instead have a place to dredge it. Therefore, he would rather suffer more grievances than offend the Great Ming, because if he offends the Great Ming, the silver piled up in Spain will continue to pile up forever," Li Li Yashi summarized.

In the communication and exchanges between Philip and the Great Ming, he had suffered grievances from the very beginning. The Governor's Office in Luzon was occupied by the Great Ming, Portugal was enfeoffed by the Great Ming, and even the Great Ming's great treasure ships reached the West and completed global trade. Yet Philip II could only open the floodgates, because the silver dammed up in Spain needed a place to discharge.

In Li Li Yashi's heart, Philip was a very good monarch, the same kind of person as His Majesty—both very diligent and loving their country more than themselves.

After Li Li Yashi left, the Great Ming Emperor received foreign envoys from Korea, Annam, and Siam. These envoys had been stationed in the capital for years, mainly for tribute matters. Zhu Zhu Yijun was very busy. After finishing the reception, he immediately set off for the Northern Camp to begin his daily inspection of troops and horses. Once he arrived, the diligent Great Ming Emperor remembered that today was a rest day, alternating every other day.

Zhu Zhu Yijun strolled around the Northern Camp, lectured a few new recruits, encouraged the sentries on duty, and watched the Great Ming's Imperial Guards at the Wu Ying Tower before returning to the Tonghe Palace with satisfaction.

After the Mid-Autumn Festival, the weather gradually turned cool. Zhu Zhu Yijun draped a cloak over himself and began his daily review of memorials.

The Ministry of Rites had already drafted the state letters according to the Great Ming Emperor's instructions. After His Majesty reviewed and revised them, they were sent to various countries. Great Ming memorials did not wait overnight, so the replies from all ministries were exceptionally fast, and administrative efficiency was extremely high.

"This idea from the Ministry of Rites is very good. The Great Ming will not indulge them. That letter to Japan must be stamped by the Japanese Emperor to prevent the Japanese pirates from reneging," Zhu Zhu Yijun wrote his vermilion comments on Wan Wan Shihe's memorial. Wan Wan Shihe said that the state letter should be exchanged three times and sent back to the Great Ming after the Japanese Emperor stamped it.

That is to say, there would be three identical copies. After receiving the previous one, it would be sent to Japan, and eventually, all three copies of the treaty would return to the Great Ming Ministry of Rites. The Great Ming would review the three anti-piracy treaties once more to prevent Japan from playing the trick of "replacing the civet cat for the crown prince."

Toward the Japanese, no amount of precaution is excessive.

"The matters presented by the Vice Prefect of Shuntian, Shen Shen Yiguan, can be approved as requested." Zhu Zhu Yijun looked at the contents of Shen Shen Yiguan's memorial. There were more and more people in Shuntian Prefecture, and urban management was becoming increasingly troublesome. Extremely obvious traffic jams had begun to appear; rickshaws, carts, pushcarts, the sedan chairs and carriages of the powerful and noble young masters were all mixed together. The entire capital was a mess, and even the government dispatches were getting stuck.

To solve this problem, the city gates needed to be expanded, roads needed to be widened, traffic lanes needed to be regulated, vehicle sizes needed to be fully standardized, and the curfew time needed to be modified. This was a very complex matter, and Shen Shen Yiguan had already tried his best to ensure its smooth and steady implementation.

Moreover, he had to request the Emperor to issue an edict so that everyone would comply with the traffic regulations.

In the capital, if you threw a brick, you could hit six famous Confucian scholars and four people with official titles, so it was inevitable that it would be difficult to manage. Thus, he could only request the Emperor to issue an edict.

In the Great Ming, only the Emperor can command the wind and rain!

Zhu Zhu Yijun approved Shen Shen Yiguan's request. With the increase in population, if the traffic in the capital was not governed, even the Emperor would be stuck in the Imperial Palace, unable to move an inch.

Zhu Zhu Yijun looked at a memorial, his brows furrowed tightly. This was a memorial submitted by Wang Qian, containing the unreviewed draft of the new issue of "Carefree Anecdotes," waiting for the Emperor's vermilion comments.

The standard-bearers openly challenging bureaucratic autocracy, the leaders of the liberal faction Lin Lin Fucheng and Li Zhi, jointly published "The Alienation of People by Power," systematically expounding the process of this alienation. This was the first time the liberal faction had openly challenged bureaucratic autocracy in a true sense, and the content was extremely detailed.

Lin Lin Fucheng interspersed some factors of "officials forcing the people to rebel," making the entire article full of impact.

It still started with a travelogue, telling the story of a head runner in Chen Qingyuan County, a leader of the Southern Yamen runners named Li Ben. This head runner Li Ben usually had a good reputation. Runners rarely had a good reputation among the people; after all, if a runner grabbed something while passing by, eating your food was giving you face, let alone paying. Li Ben's older brother was a hereditary battalion commander, and after Li Ben became the head runner, he disciplined the runners well, and in the end, they no longer harassed the people.

Of course, the runners also ate and drank well. The reason was that Li Ben relied on his older brother's prestige to lead the runners to suppress bandits everywhere. If they couldn't win, he would have his brother come to hold the line. After suppressing the bandits, they would send them to the Baoding Prefecture Inspector's Office to receive rewards. Although life couldn't be called carefree and happy, everyone had a way to survive.

Li Ben married a beautiful wife. Li Ben went out to suppress bandits all day long, and this beautiful wife couldn't stand it and hooked up with someone else. At first, no one mentioned it, and Li Ben never thought in that direction. As a result, this beautiful wife cheated him of both money and affection, emptied Li Ben out, and ran off with that thief.

Running off was one thing, but this pair of dogs ran to the home of a powerful and noble family in Chen Qingyuan County for protection.

Li Ben was naturally unhappy and reported it to the officials. The county magistrate didn't want to deal with it because the head runner was his subordinate, but the powerful and noble family might have connections reaching the heavens and were also one of the top taxpayers in the prefecture. The county magistrate didn't care, so Li Ben could only swallow this bitter pill.

Li Ben didn't go to trouble this pair of dogs, but they came to his door to demand the original dowry. Li Ben wanted to report it to the officials, but he found that reporting it meant reporting it to himself. With a hardened heart, he finished off the pair of dogs, one slash each. The servants who came with the pair of dogs didn't even dare to look.

According to the "Great Ming Code - Criminal Law - Human Life": "If anyone commits adultery and the husband catches the adulterer and adulteress at the scene and kills them on the spot, no punishment shall be imposed."

Li Ben himself was a military household and should have been under the jurisdiction of the Guard's Commandery, with the local government having no right to judge. But the county magistrate and secretary who had been playing dumb immediately took action, ordering the runners to arrest Li Ben. These runners had all been Li Ben's men; to arrest their own direct superior, and for such a rotten matter, they immediately split into two factions: one wanting to arrest, one wanting to protect.

When these runners started making a scene, it was the situation the county magistrate saw in the Southern Yamen. This Li Ben was truly too disobedient on weekdays; if he was asked to do some errands, especially some shady ones, he would push back. What the county magistrate wanted was this chaotic situation.

In the pushing and shoving, a runner was pushed to the ground by Li Ben and, as luck would have it, hit a stone and died on the spot.

This homicide case was not like the previous pair of dogs; if they died, they died. The Great Ming Code said "kill on the spot, no punishment," but this was a runner. Dying like this made the situation immediately spiral out of control.

Li Ben had no way out, so he had to become a bandit, taking a dozen runners to occupy the mountain and become king, gathering in the forest.

The story didn't end there. Li Ben took a few people to sneak into the county Southern Yamen, took the county magistrate's head, hung it in front of the Southern Yamen gate, and left. Once it reached this point, it had to be suppressed, and the one who suppressed Li Ben's mountain stronghold was Li Ben's older brother. The brothers met, hugged, and cried, and in the end, Li Ben committed suicide by pulling his sword in front of everyone.

After Lin Lin Fucheng finished the story, it was Li Zhi's turn. Li Zhi began to analyze the alienation of people by power, starting from the county magistrate.

Just because Li Ben was not very obedient, the county magistrate became dissatisfied. This is lack of benevolence and lack of forgiveness; it is the arising of anger. When Li Ben reported it to the officials for the first time, the county magistrate, as the "Blue Sky" official, not only failed to uphold justice but instead felt that his subordinate was easy to bully. This is lack of righteousness and lack of loyalty; it is stupidity, failing to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil, and acting only according to his own likes and dislikes. This is foolishness.

It was precisely the county magistrate's deliberate indulgence that led to the pair of dogs coming to the door to humiliate him. This is lack of wisdom; knowing that the conflict was deep, they still came to the door. The pair of dogs didn't weigh whether their servants were Li Ben's match; this is lack of wisdom. And when the county magistrate heard the news, the first thing he did was not to notify the Guard's Commandery to arrest them, but to overstep his authority and have the runners arrest them. This is overreaching; it is lack of trust, and it is the arising of arrogance—the arrogant heart, thinking he is very smart and looking down on others.

Lack of benevolence, righteousness, wisdom, trust, and propriety, plus lack of filial piety and brotherly love, ultimately led to brothers killing each other.

This is the alienation of people by power. In the whole process, because the county magistrate had power in his hands, he turned into the five poisons of greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt.

After discussing the existence and phenomena of alienation, Li Zhi analyzed the causes of alienation.

Because the Great Ming's censorate officials, this most important force for correcting errors in the Great Ming, had failed. The Censorate became a place to seek fame; reputation determined promotion. The censorate officials held high the banner of propriety and law, but were actually rebellious and treasonous. The incident in the early Emperor Wanli years when Tan Lun was impeached for coughing was the most typical example of the failure of the error-correcting force. The censorate officials existed by attaching themselves to the "Great Lords"; the censorate officials became the claws and teeth of power. When power loses supervision, alienation becomes inevitable.

"How did Li Zhi learn from Lin Lin Fucheng? Speaking only half the words?" Zhu Zhu Yijun flipped through this memorial, very angry. It was gone; when it came to this point, Li Zhi chose to leave it blank.

Last time, Li Zhi was still pointing fingers at the Great Ming court's decrees, that "the world is drunk while I alone am sober" look was memorable. Now he had started to learn Lin Lin Fucheng's style—I'll just point fingers and not offer solutions.

After Li Zhi and Lin Lin Fucheng communicated, it stopped here. How to restore this most important error-correcting force of the Great Ming was a problem that the Great Lords of the court should be troubled by. Li Zhi chose to avoid talking about it.

Feng Bao whispered, "Actually, they don't have any good solutions either. Being able to analyze the causes so clearly and understandably shows that the two are working together and have already done their best."

"Approve the publication." Zhu Zhu Yijun pondered for a moment and decided not to change a single word, just publish it as is.

A strange status quo: the liberal faction that challenges the Great Ming Emperor's autocracy has to rely on the Great Ming Emperor for survival, while the Emperor, who should have been stubborn and only regretful at the guillotine, is instead the liberal faction's greatest supporter.

"Another severe test." Zhu Zhu Yijun looked at the draft of "Carefree Anecdotes" in his hand and said with a complex expression, "I can't think of any good solutions either. A Censorate that can make such a mess out of even fetching water—what can save it?"

Making Lin Lin Fucheng and Li Zhi shut up would make things a bit quieter, but the problems would be completely hidden under the surface, with undercurrents surging, making it even more dangerous.

The Great Ming had actually already taken many countermeasures, such as requiring Censorate officials to have experience in local office, such as the deep execution of the Great Ming's laws against false accusations, and such as the Great Ming Emperor personally issuing edicts to make things difficult.

"These base scholars are truly... in the matter of disappointing people, they never disappoint." Several solutions flashed through Zhu Zhu Yijun's mind, but none were perfect.

Top-down methods include supervision by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, but the Guard has many inconveniences, and handling cases in local areas is fraught with difficulties; staying in local areas for a long time makes it easy to become part of the local clique. There are also bottom-up methods, which is civil supervision, but for the Great Ming, civil supervision is too advanced. Civil supervision easily becomes the mouthpiece of the powerful and noble, and party strife would spread from the court to the people.

"Send it to the Cabinet; let the Master be troubled by it too." Zhu Zhu Yijun closed the memorial and said to Feng Bao with a chuckle.