In 83 BC, during the reign of Emperor Zhao of the Western Han Dynasty, a rebellion erupted in the counties of Guzeng and Yeyu in Yizhou Commandery (in present-day western Yunnan). To stabilize the situation, the emperor dispatched Lu Pihu, the Imperial Water and Revenue Commandant, to lead an attack. The campaign went poorly, resulting in the loss of over 4,000 soldiers and a crushing defeat.
The following year, as the rebellion continued unabated, the imperial court dispatched Generals Wang Ping and Tian Guangming with a large army to suppress it. With the aid of local ethnic tribes, the conflict was swiftly quelled, and the tribal leader Juting Hou Wangbo was subsequently enfeoffed as the King of Juting for his contributions.
For over ninety years, successive kings of the Juting Kingdom remained fiercely loyal to the Han court. Though they inevitably clashed with neighboring tribal chiefs and lords, no major rebellion against Han authority erupted in the region until Wang Mang usurped the throne.
In 9 AD, the powerful relative Wang Mang seized the throne through schemes and founded the Xin Dynasty. After taking power, he overhauled many Western Han policies and demoted the King of Juting to a marquis—a slight that filled the reigning King of Juting, Wang Han, with bitter resentment.
At that time, Zhou Qin, the governor of Zangke Commandery, secretly lured Wang Han to the commandery capital and executed him in a bid to curry favor with Wang Mang and display his loyalty. This act ignited fury among the people of Yizhou, and with the support of local ethnic minorities, Wang Han's younger brother, Wang Cheng, raised an army, killed Zhou Qin to avenge his brother, and from then on, the people of Yizhou rose up en masse against Wang Mang's rule.
During the Xin Dynasty, Emperor Wang Mang grew deeply frustrated with the rebellions in the southwest. He dispatched General Feng Mao to the Ba and Shu regions (modern-day Sichuan) to recruit soldiers. To fund the campaign, Feng Mao ruthlessly squeezed the common people, levying heavy taxes to finance a massive assault on the southwestern territories.
After enduring countless hardships, Han Dynasty soldiers finally reached Juting only to be struck by a plague, with about six or seven out of every ten soldiers dying. The war dragged on for three years without victory, and the bitter complaints of the people in the Bashu and Yizhou regions only made the already chaotic situation even more turbulent.
Wang Mang recalled General Feng Mao and dispatched General Lian Dan with 200,000 cavalry, infantry, and supply troops to attack Juting again. With the army needing massive provisions, they had no choice but to impose levies on local counties.
When the local governor Feng Ying saw the people suffering beyond measure, he refused to collect taxes and sent a memorial to Wang Mang pleading for an end to the war. Wang Mang was furious upon hearing this and initially wanted to dismiss Feng Ying on the spot, but realizing his own rule was still fragile among the officials, he feared that immediately removing Feng Ying would provoke local backlash—making matters even worse.
He then said to the other ministers, "Feng Ying's memorial is not without reason, and I cannot overly criticize him. What he did is actually beyond reproach."
Wang Mang transferred Feng Ying to serve as the governor of Changsha, but this did nothing to halt the war, and the crushing taxes on the people of Ba and Shu only grew heavier. Lian Dan's army, lacking the people's support, still failed to quell the rebellion in Juting.
Prolonged warfare drained the new dynasty's strength, and the corruption and brutality of Wang Mang's regime eventually inflamed conflicts with the people. After large-scale peasant uprisings like the Green Woodsmen and Red Eyebrows, Wang Mang's regime was finally overthrown.
Later, the idiom "Not to Be Overly Criticized" is used to mean that someone or something should not be excessively blamed or condemned.
Source: *Book of Han*, "Biography of Wang Mang"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "未可厚非" came to describe someone or something should not be excessively blamed or condemned.