Son of the Most High: the First Grand Secretary has asked me to pose a question and model answer for the forthcoming metropolitan civil service examination.
Upon this measure I would thusly inquire, “Supposing a great seasonal feast was prepared late one evening in the Forbidden City for your Grace and the palatial body, and during which we found good all manners of it except for the meat (which would be discovered to be rancid), if then a stomach sickness befell the court, should it then be expected of the Son of Heaven and the people to observe the ritual predawn ceremony—even though wretching and weakness should interrupt the sacrosanct nature of the rite?”
In Book VI, Verse XII of the Lunyu, Master Confucius responded to Jan Ch’iu’s dubious and skeptical affirmation of the Way by stating:
‘A man whose strength gives out collapses along the course. In your case you set the limits beforehand.’
Our first Emperor Hung-wu was steadfast with the rites even into his old age, because he knew that, even in “straightened circumstances,” upholding and observing the rites is the only way to secure the steadfastness of the common people.
In the Book of Mencius, which serves to supplement the Master’s teachings, Meng Tzu went to see king Hûi of Liang, whereupon the king questioned of him what he had brought that would “profit his kingdom.” Meng Tzu responded by deconstructing the idea of profit and instead offered an explanation for kingly assent in the Confucian tradition:
'If your Majesty say, "What is to be done to profit my kingdom?" the great officers will say, "What is to be done to profit our families?" and the inferior officers and the common people will say, "What is to be done to profit our persons?" Superiors and inferiors will try to snatch this profit the one from the other, and the kingdom will be endangered. In the kingdom of ten thousand chariots, the murderer of his sovereign shall be the chief of a family of a thousand chariots. In the kingdom of a thousand chariots, the murderer of his prince shall be the chief of a family of a hundred chariots. To have a thousand in ten thousand, and a hundred in a thousand, cannot be said not to be a large allotment, but if righteousness be put last, and profit be put first, they will not be satisfied without snatching all. [Book of Mencius; Book I, v. IV]
I plead that you, worthy Wan-li, will seek to lean upon the strength of the ancients and their teachings, along with finding strength in the benevolent will of heaven, and the common people will not only support you, but themselves as well. This too can be applied to the previous question of the predawn rite, in my humble opinion, in that all moral force will be passed down from the top of the kingdom. If you, August Sovereign, take a stand and, even sickly and weak, perform the duty that is expected of you, then the people will see this and affect their own lives likewise.
It is said in the Book of Poetry,
He measured out and commenced his marvellous tower;He measured it out and planned it.The people addressed themselves to it,And in less than a day completed it.When he measured and began it, he said to them --Be not so earnest:But the multitudes came as if they had been his children.The king was in his marvellous park;The does reposed about,The does so sleek and fat:And the white birds came glistening.The king was by his marvellous pond;How full was it of fishes leaping about!"

The Middle Kingdom, like the multitudes in the Book of Poetry, will flock to your Way like children and give your grace the respect due without feeling the pinch of autocracy.