The civil and military officials of the whole court all knelt to remonstrate, saying things like ancestral rules must not be violated, women should not participate in politics, and so on.
Some even secretly colluded with great clan powers to resist, inciting the literati to denounce this new policy that overturned the social order by every means possible.
They accepted that Zhang Xiaoying was the Imperial Tutor, the Divine Doctor, yet refused to accept that the National Treasury was full and abundant because refined salt had been brought under state monopoly; that poor scholars could study because paper was no longer a luxury item; that the common people could be clothed and fed year after year thanks to high-yield crops; that wounded and disabled soldiers could all receive treatment and regain dignity and a new lease on life… all of it was because of Zhang Xiaoying!
Yet Yu Yang overruled the crowd and agreed to a women's imperial examination.
