The more upright officials who had once received Chen Fan's kindness, students of the Imperial Academy, Chen Fan's colleagues, and some nobles submitted another joint memorial. There were several dozen of them, all people of considerable reputation.
They demanded that eunuchs be forbidden from interfering in government and listed the many unlawful outrages committed by their sons and nephews in the countryside: seizing land, coercing the common people, bullying men and tyrannizing women, and even intimidating local officials.
Fearing retaliation from the common people, they also befriended lawless bandits and gathered crowds around themselves. It could truly be said that Heaven was enraged and the people resentful.
But the emperor did not believe a word of it.
Or rather, he believed it but did not care.
For the eunuchs were all his trusted confidants, who had helped him wrest power from the maternal relatives.
As for the common people, he was indeed their ruler and father, but how could he care about people he had never seen?
All Under Heaven was his private property, to give to whomever he pleased. Even the Five Surnames Families could leave Great Han if they disliked it. There were now All Xia states in the Western Regions, Liaodong, and Lingnan that did not belong to Great Han.
Faced with the emperor's silence, the scholars grew ever angrier. They neither hesitated nor wavered nor yielded. The emperor had to give them an answer.
We are the people of All Xia. We serve Great Han as subjects, not as your slaves!
So they joined with still more people and submitted another memorial, demanding severe punishment for the eunuchs.
This time, the emperor finally broke his silence, furiously issuing an edict that directly denounced these scholars as men who acknowledged neither ruler nor father.
They colluded in