Report That the Matter Is Not Proper in Form因。傳敎陳其事體非便。啓

Having humbly received Your Majesty's instruction, we have weighed it over and over. There is indeed much in the conduct of Shen Weijing (沈惟敬) that is to be doubted, but the talk that goes this way and that is still only rumor, and it is hard to know whether it is true or false. Our country must not on this account fail in its treatment of a general of the Celestial Court (天朝).

This affair was urged by Song Yingchang (宋應昌), and Shen Weijing was egged on by him. That the memorial to the throne (表文) was first carried off by the banner-and-tally officer (旗牌) of the Commissioner (經略) has something of a like appearance to it; but if we had the districts along the way make as though to block the road of their own accord and hold him there, and if by any chance it became known that this came of the court's command, there would be no profit in the business, and the resentment and rancor it would call up would not stop with today alone.

Moreover, though his going be somewhat delayed here, once he has crossed the Asu (鴉水) who can hold him back? Though the going of Heo Seong (許筬) is urgent, it is certain that he cannot reach Beijing at the same time as the other.

In a perilous and difficult time the ways of meeting men differ in ten thousand fashions. One does not necessarily grow closer to a man because he likes us, nor necessarily more distant because he hates us. In short, to hold them in a generous embrace and keep it from showing (牢籠含蓄), to leave no trace, and so to keep the crafty sort from spying out our shallows and our depths and contriving yet more schemes — this too is a way. Such is your servant's foolish view, and so he ventures to report it.