At the age of fifty-six Confucius left his post as Minister of Justice to take up that of First Counsellor: his first act was to put to death a grandee who was sowing disorder in the state. It was during these years of supreme administration that complete order was restored throughout the country; thieves disappeared; "sucking-pigs and lambs were sold for honest prices"; and there was general content and rejoicing throughout the land. All this made the neighbouring people of Ts'i more and more uneasy, even to the point of fearing annexation by Lu. The wily old Marquess therefore, again at the instigation of the man who had planned the attempted assassination of 500 B.C., made a selection of eighty of the most beautiful women Ts'i could produce, besides thirty four- horsed chariots of the most magnificent description. The reigning Marquess of Lu, as well as his "powerful family" friend against whom Confucius had once thought of taking arms (who, indeed, acted as intermediary) both fell into the trap: public duty and sacrifices were neglected; and the result was that Confucius at once threw up his offices and left the country in disgust. His first visit was to Wei (imperial clan), the capital city of which state then stood on the Yellow River, in the extreme north-east part of modern Ho Nan province; and through this capital the river then ran: the metropolis of one of the very ancient emperors previous to the Hia dynasty had nearly 2000 years before been in the immediate neighbourhood, as also had been the last capital of the Shang dynasty, of which, as we have seen, Confucius was a distant scion. After a few months' stay there, he was suspected and calumniated; so he decided to move on, although the ruler of Wei had generously appropriated to him a salary (in grain) suitable to his high rank. He accordingly proceeded eastwards to a town belonging to Sung (in the extreme south of modern Chih Li province): here he had the misfortune to be mistaken for the dangerous individual who had fled from Lu to Ts'i in 501, in consequence of which he returned to stay in Wei with his friend K'u-peh-yuh, who, as mentioned in Chapter XXVIII., had been visited by Ki-chah of Wu in 544 B.C. Here, as a distinguished traveller, he was asked (practically commanded) by one of the ruler's wives to pay her a visit; and, though the reluctant visit was paid with all propriety and reserve, the fact that this woman was at the time suspected of having committed incest with her own brother is considered by uncompromising native critics to leave a slight stain on Confucius' character. Worse still, the reigning prince took his wife out for a drive with a eunuch sitting in the same carriage, ordering the sage to follow the party in an inferior carriage. This was too much for Confucius, who then resumed his original journey through Sung, from which he had turned back, and proceeded to the small state of Ts'ao (imperial