 Confucian political thinkers in the Song-Ming period were preoccupied with many other contentious issues in the affairs of state and often argued vehemently over the powers and responsibilities of specific offices, famine relief policies, state rituals, laws and punishments, tax and lending policies, and military and foreign affairs (JSL 8–10; MYDFL; ZZYL 108–14; Zhu 2019: 56–71). Still, sometimes their disagreements about these issues stemmed from deeper disagreements about the role of virtue, talent, and institutional rules and incentives in effecting good governance. When the Confucians turned to consider these issues explicitly they often presented them as part of a debate about the relative importance of “institutional rules” (fa 法) as compared with “people” (ren 人) in good governance. In a well-known essay attributed to the classical Confucian Xunzi, the author framed this question in exactly those terms, arguing that good governance depends largely and more fundamentally on getting the right people, by which he meant people of talent and virtue. The chapter sums up this position in the succinct and memorable claim that “there are people who create order but no rules that create order” (Xunzi 12/57/3 [117]).