Response to Emperors (2)

1 Ri Zhongshi was a scholar who enjoyed his reputation both at home and abroad. Yesterday he held a paper-issuing meeting in the Yat-Sen Hall. Jian Wu took a special leave to take part in the meeting.

2 Kuang Jieyu meets Jian Wu early in the morning and asks him eagerly, “What did Ri Zhongshi say yesterday?”

3 Jian Wu says, “He deemed that a leader should have daring resolution and his policy should be clear, considerate and continuous in implementation, never ceasing in the halfway. He thought that people would comply with the government order and governmental affairs would implement smoothly as long as government could put forward a clear working plans and acting creeds.”

4 Kuang Jieyu shakes his head. “Nonsense! There is no way of governance like this. His way is just like excavating a river in the sea, or asking a mosquito to carry a hill. It is impossible.

5 The right way of governance is absolutely not to make out various policies or regulations to restrict people’s conducts, asking them to do what, or not to do what.

6 A leader’s major and only job is to build a good environment in which people could bring their skill and talent into full play. In the day to day works, a leader would make himself as a just and incorrupt referee when people need him. As for the other social works, he may let people play their own roles of adaptation, development and solution without intervention.

7 Look at the birds. No one teaches them, they know to fly high to escape from the arrows; mice know to build dens under the altar to avoid being smoked out. Birds and mice can do in the best way to maintain their life. Don’t the wise people know the best way to live? Why does the leader set his feet in it?”