The rule on such occasions was, that, if the party should endeavour to recede after this exhortation, he would have received fifty blows of a bamboo, and have been immediately sent out of the country: but if he persisted in his appeal, he was immediately admitted to an audience of the emperor. The merchant strenuously persisted in his demand for justice, and was at length admitted to the presence of the emperor, to whom he related the injustice of the eunuch, in taking away his goods by force. Upon this, the merchant was thrown, into prison, and the emperor ordered his prime minister to write to the governor of Canfu, to make strict inquiry into the complaints which he had exhibited against the eunuch, and to make a faithful report of all the circumstances; and he, at the same time, gave similar orders to three other principal officers, to make the same inquiry, all separate and unknown to each other. These officers, who are called of the right, of the left, and of the centre, according to their ranks, have the command of the imperial forces, under the prime minister; they are entrusted with the guard of the emperors person: and when, he takes the field, on any military enterprise, or on any other account, these officers are stationed near him, each according to his rank. All of these made accordingly the strictest inquiries into the allegations of the merchant, and all separately gave in their reports, assuring the emperor that these complaints were just and well-founded: and these were followed and confirmed by many other informations. The eunuch was in consequence deprived of his office of treasurer, find all his effects were confiscated; on which occasion the emperor addressed him as follows; "Death ought to have been your doom, for giving occasion of complaint against me to this man, who hath come from Chorassan, which is on the borders of my empire. He hath been in the country of the, Arabs, whence he came into the kingdoms of the Indies, and thence into my empire, seeking his advantage by trade; and you would have occasioned him to return across all these regions, saying to all the people in his way, that he had been abused and stripped of his substance in China. In consideration of your former services, and the rank you have held in my household, I grant your life; but as you have not discharged your duty in regard to the living, I will confer upon you the charge of the dead." The eunuch was accordingly sent to take the custody of the imperial tombs, and to remain there for the remainder of his life.