None of them spoke, but all had the same concern. Zigong, who arrived last, hurried in and said, “Shaozheng Mao was a person well known to the people of Lu—why, sir, having newly assumed your authority, did you begin by executing him?” “Si,” replied Kongzi, “this is a matter that lies beyond your understanding.
True kings, please note, execute five kinds of people, and thieves are not among them.
In the first category are those whose hearts are biased and treacherous.
In the second are those whose speech is contrived and showy.
In the third are those whose behavior is perverse and impervious to modification. In the fourth are those whose pursuits are both stupid and wide-ranging, and in the fifth are those who interpret matters incorrectly but persuasively.
These five types of people all gain renown for brilliance of argument and mastery of affairs, but their reputations are false.
When their actions are abetted by deceit, they are intelligent enough to move the masses and strong enough to stand without support.
They are the ‘heroes,’ as it were, of dishonesty and cannot but be executed.
If a person exemplified but one of these five qualities, he could not be spared execution; but Shaozheng Mao exemplifies all of them—that is why I executed him first.
“In former times, Tang98 executed La Mu; Tai-gong100 executed Fan Zhi, Guan Zhong102 executed Shi Fu Li, and Zichan104 executed Deng Xi.
None of those five gentlemen dispensed with executions, and the ones whom they executed were not those who plundered goods by day and pilfered things by night but rather those who made states totter.
Those are the ones who give men of quality deep cause for suspicion and who lead astray the hearts of little people.
A passage in the Odes says, ‘My heart is full of care, / Embittered by petty ones.’106 That sums it up indeed!