# Gems of Chinese Literature/Ou-yang Hsiu-Imperial Extravagance

OU-YANG HSIU.
a.d. 1017-1072
[A leading statesman, historian, poet, and essayist of the Sung dynasty. His tablet is to be found in the Confucian temple; an honour reserved for those alone who have contributed towards the elucidation or dissemination of Confucian truth.]
MAY it please your Majesty,
I am informed that in consequence of the recent birth of a princess, a demand has been made on the Treasury for no less than 8,000 pieces of silk.
Now the rigour of winter is just at its height, and the wretched workmen of the Dyeing Department, forced to break ice before they can get water, will suffer unspeakable hardships in supplying the amount required. And judging by your Majesty's known sentiments of humanity and thrift, I cannot believe that this wasteful corvée is to be imposed, though rumour indeed has it that the dyers are already at work.
I have also noticed that the relatives of the Lady Chang have of late participated too frequently in the Imperial bounty. I am, it is true, but a poor Censor; yet whenever I see anything calculated to impair the prestige of the Son of Heaven, it becomes my duty to speak, that the divine wrath may be averted in time.
It is a noticeable fact in our annals that those favoured ladies who modestly and thriftily availed themselves of their connexion with the Throne, always prospered; while those, on the other hand, who gave themselves up to extravagance and nepotism, invariably ended in ruin. I will not cite instances from remote antiquity: I will confine myself to the more recent condition of affairs within the palace. Where, I would ask, are those proud spendthrift ladies who basked but just now in the imperial smiles? In their stead we have the Lady Chang, but yesterday blushing unseen in her quiet home,―to-day, the synosure of every eye. Report declares her to be of quite another mould, and well qualified ​to keep the position to which she has been raised. Nevertheless, there seems to be growing up that old tendency to exceed, which sets men’s tongues agog; and if your Majesty would save this lady from the fate of her predecessors, it would be well to admonish that a more modest economy prevail. For example: these 8,000 pieces of silk cannot all be for that one lady's use. Doubtless they are for distribution; but in that case their preparation involves waste of money, and gives a handle for public censure, from which even the Throne itself is not exempt.
Only lately the Lady Chang’s mother received a District, and four days afterwards a Department; and now it is rumoured that further emoluments are to be bestowed upon distant relatives. That parents should share in the prosperity of their children is perhaps admissible; but propriety has its limits, and these are overstepped in the case of distant relatives. Who were they, forsooth, before the Lady Chang entered the Imperial hareem, that their present rank and riches should yield a subject for conversation injurious to the prestige of the Throne?
And were this a question only of the Lady Chang, the principle would still be applicable: how much more so as things are? The fact is that the Imperial bounty is too lavishly bestowed, and that extravagance is rife in the palace. Your Majesty suffers thereby: the State suffers thereby; and it is my duty to speak, trusting that your Majesty will take immediate steps to rectify these abuses.