There are no purely good loyalists or purely evil traitors here. Wanli was not simply an incompetent ruler: he was a lonely emperor bound by ritual. The Donglin scholars held ideals, yet were also skilled at excluding those outside their faction. The Grand Secretariat's chief minister held high office, but walked on eggshells at every turn. Women of the imperial harem, eunuchs of the Eastern Depot, local censors, and generals on the frontier were all swept into the fray by the times and the court.
The Four Great Cases were only the surface. Beneath them lay decades of unceasing political maneuvering and slaughter. Every strange case, conflict, suspicion, and power struggle ultimately stemmed from the entrenched institutional ills of the Ming Empire. As the sun sank behind the palace gates, the shocking cases were plain to see. What remained hidden was the vast dynasty's irreversible path to decline.
