Letter to the Inspectors and Army Commanders of the Four Provinces移四道巡察使兵使文

Among the offices that stand close to the people none is more pressing than the magistrate, and whether a magistrate fulfills his duty or not rests only in making the performance rating strict and clear, following the public way throughout, and not letting slander and praise confuse the truth of it. The state set up the law of rating twice a year and had men graded in three classes, upper, middle, and lower; the intent of this was not idle. If the rating is made very strict, so that the magistrate who gives his whole mind and serves the public falls in the upper class, while he who is slack in his duties and greedy and harsh and sickens the people has nowhere to be tolerated and sheltered, then of itself the benefit will reach the people and the way of good government will be practiced.

Of late, in the aftermath of utter ruin, the livelihood of the people is thin and meager, and compared with the people of ordinary times their resentment and distress are ten thousandfold; and on top of this there are such matters as levies and haulage, receiving the Ming officials, and being pressed to furnish pack animals, so that the people's suffering is extreme. At such a time the magistrates once again practice a harsh and cruel administration. Some are cruel in punishment, exact taxes on many pretexts, use the public business as cover for private profit, and entertain their friends in numbers, so that the measures that sicken the people are as thick as a hedgehog's bristles. And if the court does not know of it and the governor does not hear of it, where are the people to go and make their plea?

The worst of them call good evil and evil good, so that doing well and doing ill are turned about and reward and punishment go backward. Once the way of encouragement and chastisement is thrown into confusion at the top, there will be no time when the people's resentment is done away with; it is the more disheartening. This is what one who holds the office of censor of a region cannot escape, though he would decline the responsibility. And as for the border officers and the forts and posts, whether they comfort the soldiers and mend what is withered and sick is a matter of no light consequence; the rating of these must be stricter still.

It is now two years since this office received its commission and took the field-marshalcy over the four provinces, and I have not yet toured the regions in my charge, so that whether the magistrates are worthy or not I know only by report, and not in detail. At the performance rating this winter, look with particular strictness and clarity into the actual results of the magistrates and border officers of the province and memorialize them; then report to this office, in succession and with the facts set out, those among them who are especially outstanding in doing well or ill, to serve as evidence for investigation and disposal.