At dusk, Chen Caozhi returned to the Gu Residence and immediately went to see Gu Minzhi, informing him that the Chancellery of the Book of Documents had revised the Protected Dependents System and issued the Retirement Order urging officials to resign. Gu Minzhi was somewhat startled by the Retirement Order. It seemed Huan Wen was deeply resolved to carry out this Tuduan. He immediately accompanied Chen Caozhi on a nighttime visit to Zhang Ping to discuss the matter.
Zhang Ping and Gu Minzhi knew that sixteen counties in Danyang, Dongyang, and Wuxing were using excuses to delay Tuduan. Most of their chief officials came from the Kuaiji Yu Clan, the Kuaiji He Clan, the Kuaiji Wei Clan, the Wu Commandery Zhu Clan, and the Wu Commandery Lu Clan. The Great Clans of Gu and Zhang in Wu Commandery were still watching and waiting, while the great Kong Clan of Kuaiji had yet to voice its support for Lu Shi, precisely because Kong Wang was close to Chen Caozhi-
The gentry clans of the Three Wu were concentrated mainly in Yangzhou's ten commanderies: Danyang, Yicheng, Wu Commandery, Wuxing, Kuaiji, Dongyang, Xin'an-Linhai, Yongjia, Yixing, and Jinling. Apart from Jinling, which was excluded from this Tuduan, roughly half the hundred and twenty counties in the other nine commanderies were controlled by the gentry clans of the Three Wu. Lu Shi's instructions to sixteen counties to obstruct Tuduan were only an initial probe. If the great clans of the Three Wu united with a single purpose, they could control half of Yangzhou, making it impossible for the Yuxu Tuduan to proceed at all. If the conflict intensified, it was not impossible that it would develop into civil strife. But this was absolutely not what Gu Minzhi and Zhang Ping wished to see. So long