In the late Tang, regional military governors rose to power; generals overshadowed the sovereign, warlords contended for supremacy, and the Central Plains were devastated. When the Song arose, its founding emperor Zhao Kuangyin, mindful of this, stripped the generals of military command, placed the military under civil control and concentrated authority. Generals had little power under a web of rules; the army was bloated and poorly trained, and the dynasty ultimately fell to the Jin and the Mongols.

Dong Zhongshu said: 'Unless one bends past the proper line, what is crooked cannot be straightened.' Yet once the crooked has been corrected, going beyond the middle does harm. Someone once repeatedly threatened me with separation, and in the end we separated. Foolish and confused then, I took the threat as proof that separation was inevitable, and decided to hasten it. Thinking now: if there is an anthill in a dike that has not yet failed, removing it will suffice. How is abandoning the dike and fleeing any different from the dike collapsing? This is what it means to overcorrect.

Recorded in regret over the past, on the guihai day of the seventh month in the 68th year of the Republic.