Entry

The dukes, marquis and earls, as well as the officials of the five military commissions, six ministries, the Censorate, the Court of Judicial Review and the Embroidered-Uniform Guard submitted an impeachment memorial in respect of the Qian-guo Duke Mu Sheng, the Xing-an Earl Xu Heng and the Xin-ning Earl Tan Zhong. The memorial noted: "Previously, when the remnant evil-doers in Jiao-zhi engaged in rebellion, it was ordered that [Mu] Sheng and so on take command of the troops and, together with the An-yuan Marquis Liu Sheng, advance along different routes and then combine their forces to eliminate the bandits. The Emperor repeatedly conferred orders of warning to ensure that they would meet up on schedule, would assist each other and indeed capture the bandits. However, [Mu] Sheng and the others did not respect the Emperor's orders, shrank back and constantly delayed their advance. Only after 3 months-plus did they come to the bandit's borders. They did not coordinate with Liu Sheng and so on, which led to the bandits being able to concentrate their strength in opposition to the Imperial army. When it was heard that [Liu] Sheng had been killed, [Mu] Sheng and the others did not push forward in a determined way to provide relief for Jiao-zhi, but drew the troops back. Advantage was taken of this by the bandits and they engaged in the wounding and killing of government troops, who thus threw away their armour and weapons and fled. The bandits grew increasingly strong and finally the city fell. The violations of the Emperor's orders by [Mu] Sheng and so on have brought disgrace to the state and death to the troops, and their crimes must be properly dealt with so as to demonstrate Heaven's punishment." The Emperor said: "Mu Sheng is not to be investigated. The Censorate is to seal the file so as to indicate this fact. As to Heng and Zhong, we shall wait until they return."