By June, the weather had grown somewhat steadier, but it was still very hot.
In the relocated Langya Commandery, chickens still flew and dogs still leaped.
This time, chickens were flying and dogs were leaping in the literal sense. Langya Interior Minister Liu Cheng had dispatched Department Clerks in force to investigate local Yellow Register gentry households and untangle fraudulent claims... By this point, no one could possibly still doubt his political clout, methods, or resolve. At the very least, no one within this commandery, only the size of Jiangcheng County, would question them.
Yet this matter touched the official caps and moneybags of influential locals, and these influential people were still, in essence, so-called second-rate, low-ranking gentry. Under the present gentry hierarchy, they truly could not overturn the heavens. How could chickens not fly and dogs not leap?
And while chickens flew and dogs leaped within Langya Commandery, in Jiankang, Sun Chuo-the literary master of the age, Marquis of Changle, and former Chief Clerk to the General of the Right-suddenly boarded a carriage for the Department of State Affairs and submitted a public joint memorial to the court, or rather, one that had long since been copied and circulated.
He stated outright that since Later Zhao had fractured, Great Jin had spent years on northern expeditions, with victories and defeats alike. Although Chang'an and Xuchang had been recovered, countless provisions, supplies, and men had also been consumed, unsettling the realm... Up to this point, it was nothing unusual, for Sun Chuo had always favored remaining secure in the south, and the Kuaiji circle of celebrated scholars to which he belonged was mostly conservative in its political leanings. They generally opposed aggressive northern expeditions and hoped to allow recovery and ease internal tensions.
Everyone could understand such remarks.
Yet he