Grand Minister over the Masses, a teacher of the Documents from Runan, put in chains in 39 CE over the figures in the land-and-household audit and dead in prison within the year.
The charge against him in the annal is four characters: the audit was not done truthfully. He was put in chains and dead in prison within the year.The four-word charge is the annal's own, not a speech of his — Hou Han shu, juan 1 lower, Annals of Emperor Guangwu
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- Emperor Guangwu commander — A teacher of the Documents from Runan who had served the throne through the Hebei years and was made Grand Minister over the Masses; when the land-and-household audit came in crooked in 39 CE he was thrown into prison, and the emperor would not let him out alive.
Myth vs record
The audit of 39 CE was a routine piece of administrative housekeeping that cost nobody his career.
It cost the Grand Minister over the Masses his life, and it was the second holder of that office to die in eighteen months — one dismissed and by his own hand, one in chains. In the ninth month of 40 CE the governor of the capital commandery and ten-odd more went to prison and died there for the numbers. Then the land answered: the great families of the commanderies, the men who held the local soldiers, and the ordinary bandits rose everywhere in the same months, and the court did not send an army. It sent a proclamation.