ABSTRACT
For State Councillors, to be politically incorrect meant execution or at best a period of internal exile, the death being self-administered by drinking a poisoned cup at the King's request. It could be required not only for outright treason, but for offences such as giving the incorrect advice on political questions, which opponents could construe as threatening the fate of the realm, or mistakes in official rituals, which by upsetting the balance of yin and yang could be blamed for plagues or famines, so that controversies that might otherwise appear as almost comic could provide the pretext for exile or death.
