After the Qingming Festival on the eighth day of the third month, Ding Yi, the Ding Clan Chief, visited the heads of the Quan, Zhu, Gu, Fan, Du, and Dai clans in succession. He laid out the stakes and urged the Seven Surnames to join forces in accusing Chu Wenqian of expanding the county offices, taking bribes, and perverting the law. Lady Zhu and the Fan clan wanted to stand aside with their hands tucked into their sleeves, but Ding Yi said, "The land registration review has always targeted only cold-gate families, never the gentry clans. Now, to vent a private grudge, the Chu Clan intends to investigate the hidden households privately attached to our Ding Clan Manor. If you refuse to resist together and consider this solely the Ding Clan's affair, we can only surrender every last hidden household and submit to the Chu Clan for now. But I fear your own days will not be easy afterward, either. This is a matter in which one clan's glory brings glory to all, and one clan's ruin brings ruin to all-"
Ding Yi had already privately informed Du Zigong that six cold-gate clans were to enter the Gentry Register. Among them were his son-in-law Sun Tai's Langya Sun Shi and the Qiantang Chen Clan. The Chu Clan remained ill-informed, yet still hoped to suppress the Chen Clan on charges of harboring refugees and evading taxes; its defeat was easy to foresee. Du Zigong said, "Last year, the Chu Clan secretly supported the Lu Clan's fraudulent entry into the Gentry Register. That truly disgraced the dignity of the gentry clans. Now they are using public affairs to vent a private grudge. How could such people bring blessings to their native district? If Ding Sheren is forced to surrender his privately attached