Lu’s minister Ji Huanzi accepted female entertainers from Qi and skipped court for three days. Disappointed by this neglect of state affairs and broken rituals, Confucius resigned immediately, refusing to stay in a corrupted court where his moral ideals could not be realized.
Duke Jing of Qi planned to offer Confucius a middle-tier official rank but later declined to employ him, claiming old age. Confucius left Qi at once, refusing a powerless post and upholding his dignity to seek a ruler willing to fully implement his moral ideals.
Confucius names Weizi, Jizi and Bigan the three benevolent men of the Shang. Though they took vastly different paths—fleeing, feigning madness, dying in remonstrance—all acted out of loyal care for their state, showing benevolence allows flexible expedient choices.
Mencius distinguishes royal kinsmen ministers from unrelated ones. Kinsmen may replace a repeatedly unrepentant ruler after remonstrance, while outsider ministers resign if their earnest advice fails, stressing different political duties tied to blood bonds.
Mencius describes expanding friendship from local to global virtuous scholars, then “befriending ancient sages” spiritually. He puts forward the literary critical principle: readers must grasp writers’ lives and their eras to fully understand their poems and books.