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Forbidden City Speech

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Your grace becomes greater and more influential as the days pass by, and Your wisdom accumulates exponentially forevermore. I thank you for allowing me to offer insight on your decisions and for taking my assistance into consideration. Once again, I humbly stand to bid my utmost advice upon your rulings for the Middle Kingdom, and I hope that my words only add to your greatness and esteemed authority. Your Majesty’s wise response to The Grand Secretariats’ discussion of the matters of the empire as well as Your overall leadership have inspired my course of focus. With the guidance of Confucian teachings, I have prepared a counsel for Your Majesty addressing the succession topic of internal distress within the Forbidden City and how this is …show more content…

In the Han Period, Emperor Yao, who was surely “reverential, intelligent, accomplished, thoughtful, and mild”, chose to avoid naming his own son as successor (Carnes 31). Emperor Yao extended his light to “heaven above and earth below” and decided, with his esteem, that in order for the Han to continue to be a harmonious empire, a more virtuous man, Shun of Yu, needed to be declared emperor (Carnes 31-32). Furthermore, it is important that Your Majesty quickly decides on a successor for the empire so that he can begin his training much like You did at a very young age (Huang 3). Like the sun’s heat on a clear day, the issue of succession has loomed upon this assembly with concern and anxiety; however, Your Majesty has shown reverence in effectively leading the empire to endless respect and reign. All in all, let the decision of succession no longer entail in the discussion of this session, for it takes away time from concentration on the concrete matters of the empire as a …show more content…

The Mongols are invading, Japanese pirates are at the shores of the empire, the Yellow River is flooding at the rim, banditry is a pretentious problem in the empire’s villages, and there is a pressing question of taxation and revenue within the empire. Of course, these problems have already been addressed by Your Majesty through Your almighty decree in response to Your ministers’ previous memorials. Nonetheless, these decrees must now be efficiently implemented into the Ming society. Faced with this task, Your Majesty might wonder, as Ji Kang Zi once did in asking the Master, “How can I make the people reverent and loyal, so they will work positively for me?” (Book II. 20). The Master answered him, “Approach them with dignity, and they will be reverent. Be filial and compassionate and they will be loyal. Promote the able and teach the incompetent, and they will work positively for you” (Book II. 20). I long that Your Majesty takes guidance from these analects and enforces the decrees you instated into the entire

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